[6] One of them, known as Gasr Bint esh-Sheikh, dates from the late Hellenistic and early Roman periods.

[7][8] Al-Ras was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517 with all of Palestine, and in 1596 it appeared in the tax registers as being in the Nahiya of Bani Sa'b of the Liwa of Nablus.

The villagers paid a fixed tax-rate of 33,3% on various agricultural products, including wheat, barley, summer crops, olive trees, goats and/or beehives in addition to occasional revenues and a fixed tax for people of Nablus area; a total of 6,600 akçe.

[10] In 1870/1871 (1288 AH), an Ottoman census listed the village with 23 Household in the nahiya (sub-district) of Bani Sa'b.

[11] In 1882 the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described Er Ras as: "a small hamlet on a high knoll, supplied by cisterns, with olives below on the north.