The word tägäru (ተገሩ) "they ascended" describes the ascension of the earliest indigenous people to the mountainous highlands of Eritrea as the plateau's first settlers.

Since Eritrean independence, the National Museum of Eritrea has petitioned the Ethiopian government to return artifacts removed from the site, though their efforts have been rebuffed.

Qohaito is often identified as the town Koloe described in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, a Greco-Roman document dated to the end of the first century,[5] which thrived as a stop on the trade route between Adulis and Aksum.

Medri Bahri (Tigrinya: ምድሪ ባሕሪ, English: Land of the Sea) or Mereb Melash (Tigrinya: መረብ ምላሽ, English: Beyond the Mereb), also known as Ma'ikele Bahr or Bahr Melash was a semi-autonomous province of the Ethiopian Empire located north of the Mareb River, in the Eritrean highlands (Kebassa) and some surrounding areas.

Mereb Melash corresponds to the administrative territory ruled by the Bahr Negus (King of the Sea) in medieval times.