The site features an ancient synagogue, wine presses, cisterns, mikvehs (ritual baths), stone ossuaries, and an underground hideout system.

[2][3] Damaged and temporarily abandoned during the First Jewish–Roman War, the village was ultimately and violently destroyed during the Bar Kokhba revolt, as evidenced by a destruction layer and a mass grave found in a mikveh, which contained the remains of fifteen individuals, including one showing signs of beheading, as well as broken tools and coins.

[2] The site is identified with Caphethra, a village on the Judaean Foothills mentioned by Josephus as destroyed during a campaign by units of the Legio V Macedonica in the area in 69 CE.

A rescue excavation was carried out at Hurvat Ethri in 1999–2000 on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) following a long-running looting at the site.

[2] Numerous remains from the Hellenistic period have been discovered at the site, including rooms incorporated into later buildings, cisterns, and underground quarries.

A few Hasmonean period prutahs as well as coins of Seleucid rulers Antiochus VII and Demetrius II struck at the Tyre mint are examples of artifacts from the time.

[2]Archaeological findings at the site reveal that its inhabitants had several sources of income, namely, a columbarium facility for breeding doves and producing fertilizer, and loom and spindle weights for spinning and weaving.

However, its numerous wine presses suggest that the town's inhabitants were engaged in viniculture.During the First Jewish–Roman War (66-73 CE), the village suffered damage, had some of its structures demolished, and was momentarily abandoned.

[2] According to Finnish scholar, Aapeli Saarisalo [fi], who visited the site in the earlier 20th-century, the village was settled as late as the Byzantine and Early Arab period.