Khirbet Minya was likely built during the reign of the Umayyad caliph al-Walid I (705-715 CE) and an inscription on a stone found at the site mentions his name.

It thus remains uncertain whether the palace was ever finished: Fallen debris from the earthquake was discovered in the 20th century in situ on the floor tiles of the main entry.

[6] In 1596 a village by the name of Mina (Minya) appeared in the Ottoman tax registers as part of the nahiya (subdistrict) of Jira in the Sanjak (district) of Safad.

[8][9] Parts of the ruin were used as a water reservoir (likely for a mill) and later a large brick oven was built in the south wing and used to process sugar cane from nearby plantations.

[3]: 17 In the second half of the 19th century, Charles William Wilson and other European travellers discovered ancient ruins among the huts of a local fellah settlement.

[3] After the true Capernaum synagogue was discovered in 1904, de:Andreas Evaristus Mader (1881-1949), an archaeologist and Salvatorian patre, conducted exploratory excavations at the ruin and its environments on behalf of the Görres Society in 1911-4 and again in 1931.

Identifying a large square structure with outer walls and corner towers, he thought it to be a Roman fort or castrum.

[12] In 2001, a study by the Getty Conservation Institute found severe structural damage to the ruin, caused by the climate and by vegetation.

[3]: 15–16 The palace of Khirbat al-Minya is contained within an irregular rectangular enclosure (66 by 73 meters) oriented north–south,[4] facing the four cardinal points.

[2] The main gate in the middle of the eastern wall is formed by two projecting half-round towers separated by the arch of the gateway.

[4] The centre of the structure is occupied by a colonnaded courtyard with twin staircases giving access to an upper floor level.

[4] Marble panels covered the dadoes of the walls and stone mosaics combined with glass cubes were set in geometric carpet-like patterns on the floors of the five southern rooms.

In 2012, the Institute for Prehistory and Early History of the University of Mainz, in cooperation with the Deutscher Verein vom Heiligen Lande, presented a plan to the Israeli authorities.