Staff Officer of Archaeology (SOA), Civil Administration of Judea and Samaria

The site, located on the spur separating the village of Wadi Fukin and Beitar Illit, was first surveyed in 1968 during the Emergency Survey, and surveyed in detail and limitedly excavated by the late D. Amit in 1989, who dated the activity at it to the Ottoman period. In the years 1948–1956 a Jordanian army post operated at the site, till its destruction by the IDF during the "Lulav" reprisal operation.

The present excavations (2016) exposed over half of the of the structures at the site (30). The architecture is distinctive for its simplicity: the basic unit is a single-roomed, two-levelled building, built in irregulars plans with rounded corners.

The mosque, the guest house and the elite dwellings were located in the centre, flanked with clusters of family dwellings; a communal kitchen, several minimalistic dwellings and animal pens were placed at the periphery of the site. Rich pottery, metal and zoological assemblages were collected.

The numismatic evidence suggests the beginning of activity at the site in the days of Abdul Hamid I (1774–1789) and its termination early in the reign of Selim III (1789–1807), ca. 1790, as a result of a violent event which involved musket fire and torching of the village.