Q'ueli
| Q'ueli fortress/Kol (Kuvel) Kalesi | |
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| Near Kolköy, Posof, Ardahan Province, Turkey | |
 Q'ueli fortress/Kol (Kuvel) Kalesi
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| Coordinates | 41°26′31″N 42°37′26″E / 41.44197°N 42.62386°E |
Q'ueli (Georgian: ყუელი) or Q'uelis-tsikhe (ყუელისციხე, "fortress of Q'ueli") was a medieval Georgian fortress atop the homonymous mountain of the Arsiani Range (Yalnızçam Dağları), now within the boundaries of Turkey, where it is known as Kol Kalesi or Kuvel Kalesi. Its Georgian name is alternatively transliterated as Qveli, Kveli, K'veli, Qvelis-ts'ikhe or Qvelis-c'ixe. First appearing in the early 10th-century Georgian sources, Q'ueli was one of the principal fortifications of the province of Samtskhe until being conquered by the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century.
The name Q'ueli/Q'uelis-tsikhe literally translates from Georgian as "a cheese fortress", which was a source of the Greek equivalent Tyrokastron (Τυρόχαστρον)—the name by which the fortress is mentioned in Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos's De Administrando Imperio.
The fortress of Q'ueli, now largely in ruins, lies at the village of Kolköy in the present-day district of Posof, northeastern Turkey, close to the border with Georgia. It is first mentioned in the early 10th-century Georgian hagiographic text Passion of Gobron by Stepane Mtbevari as the site of resistance to the invading army of the Azerbaijani emir Yusuf Ibn Abi'l-Saj—Abu l'K'asim of the Georgian accounts—in 914. According to this source, Q'ueli fell after a 28-day siege and the Georgian commanding officer Gobron, a devoted Christian, was put to death for having refused to convert to Islam.
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