The local farmers cultivated cereals, fruit trees and olive groves and some engaged in livestock breeding.

[7] Bayt ʿIṭāb is identified with Enadab, a name that appears in Eusebius' Onomasticon, written in the fourth century CE.

[8][9] Agmon conjectured that its ancient name was batˁaṭami = "place of the vulture-goddess shrine", in reference to the Egyptian deity Nekhbet.

[10] In the mid-12th century, Bayt ʿIṭāb hosted an impressive maison forte [fr], or fortified hall house, in the ancient centre of the modern village, that is thought to have served as the residence of Johannes Gothman, a Frankish crusader knight.

[16] The Arabic name of the village appears in Latin transliteration as Bethaatap in a list recording the 1161 sale of Gothman's land.

Robinson recounts that he was "a good-looking man" from the Lahaam clan, and that when they arrived in the village, he was sitting conversing with other sheikhs on a carpet under a fig tree.

[19] As Meron Benvenisti writes, al-Lahham waged "a bloody war against Sheik Mustafa Abu Ghosh, whose capital and fortified seat was in the village of Suba.

[20][21] In February 1855, the Abu Ghosh clan came to the aid of Atallah, conquered Bayt ʿIṭāb, and imprisoned ʿUtham al-Laḥḥām in his own house.

With the help of one of the younger members of the Abu Ghosh clan, James Finn was able to negotiate a cease-fire between the Atallah and Lahham factions in Bayt 'Itab.

"[23] An official Ottoman village list from about 1870 cited by Socin shows that Bayt 'Itab had a total of 89 houses inhabited by 241 people, with the caveat that the population count included men only.

[24] In the late 19th century, Bayt ʿIṭāb was described as a village built on stone, perched on a rocky knoll that rose 60 to 100 feet above the surrounding hilly ridge.

[29][30] The original layout of Bayt ʿIṭāb was circular, but newer construction to the southwest (towards Sufla), gave the village an arc-shape.

He noted two cemeteries that lay east and west of the village, and the fact that some of the surrounding land was cultivated by Israeli farmers.

[5] [36] Remains at the site include a Crusader fortress, vaults, remnants of a wall and towers, tunnels, a columbarium and an olive press.

[43] This cavern or tunnel, known in Arabic as Mgharat Bīr el-Hasuta, ("Cave of the Well of Hasuta") is "evidently artificial," and was hewn into the rock.

"[45][46] John William McGarvey (1881) quotes Conder on the linguistic evidence: "The substitution of B for M is so common (as in Tibneh for Timnah) that the name Atab may very properly represent the Hebrew Etam (eagle's nest); and there are other indications as to the identity of the site.

"[47] Survey of Western Palestine (1883), notes that the name of the "curious cave" at Bayt ʿIṭāb in Arabic is Bir el-Has Utah.

"[16] McGarvey also relays Conder's belief that the cavern within the rock formation was "the real hiding place" of Samson after his destruction of the Philistine's grains.