There is no literary evidence that a Greek colony existed at Tsikhisdziri, but archaeological excavations revealed the 5th-century BC burials of adults and of children in amphorae, set down into levels of earlier dune-settlement.

[3] A collection of the 3rd-century AD items—gold jewelry, silver and bronze vessels, beads, and coins—and now known as the Tsikhisdziri treasure was found there in 1907 and then acquired by the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

[4] Part of this collection is a rock crystal intaglio depicting a bearded man identified as the Roman emperor Lucius Verus: the design was gilded and the stone was polished to allow the image to be seen through the transparent material.

On the territory of the citadel, the area of which totals around 1.5 h, are the ruins of a 6th-century three-nave basilica with the dimensions of 33X17.80 m, with narthex, projecting apse, and floor mosaic, and remains of two other churches, one from the early Christian period and the other dated to the High Middle Ages.

[9] Later, the locale continued to be home to a stronghold of some importance, namely, the Devils' Fortress, ts'ikhe k'ajet'isa, mentioned by the Georgian scholar Prince Vakhushti in his 1745 geography as situated near the small town of Kobuleti, on "the edge of the sea,...strong, built on a high cliff, possessing a rocky tunnel, curved as a road".