Archaeological discoveries include a silver hoard with Hebrew inscriptions, a Jewish burial cave, and the 4th-century Eshtemoa synagogue, later converted into a mosque.

[5] Initially a small village in the early Ottoman era,[6] as-Samu' gradually grew into a larger settlement over the years.

[9] As-Samu' is built upon a tell[3] identified with Eshtemoa, an ancient Jewish settlement mentioned in various historical sources.

[4][10] In 1971, five pottery jars dated to the 9th-8th centuries BCE were found in as-Samu', bearing inscriptions written in the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet.

[12][13] In the late 19th century, a number of explorers visited the village and documented carved architectural elements scattered within it.

These elements were incorporated into the walls of the village houses, with some reportedly adorned with a menorah and Jewish inscriptions.

[18][19] Four seven-branched menorahs were discovered carved onto door lintels and one of them is displayed in Jerusalem's Rockefeller Museum.

[21] Under Islamic rule, the synagogue was repurposed as a mosque,[5] which was constructed in its main prayer hall,[21] with the addition of a mihrab.

They paid a fixed tax-rate of 33,3% on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, vineyards and fruit trees, in addition to occasional revenues, goats and bee-hives; a total of 3000 akçe.

On the north is an open valley, and the modern buildings extend along a spur which runs out west from the watershed.

[31] In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, As-Samu (called: Al Samu) had an entirely Muslim population of 1,600 inhabitants.

[38] In the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War and the 1949 Armistice Agreements, As-Samu was annexed by Jordan along with the rest of the renamed ‘West Bank’.

[42] It was reported in 2005 that 10,000 dunums of land in the towns of 'as-Samu, Yatta and ad-Dhahiriya near Hebron were to be seized by the Israel Defense Forces for the construction of the separation wall.

[43] Palestinian sources have alleged that settler violence from the nearby Israeli settlements of Ma'on and Asa'el has prevented them from accessing their fields.

[44][45] Among the residents of as-Samu are the Abu Awwad, al-Badareen, ad-Daghameen, al-Hawadah , al-Mahareeq, ar-Rawashdah, al-Salameen and az-Za'areer families.