The SWP found cisterns cut in the rock and a well.[4] Dauphin described the place as being an ancient village on a hill slope, with traces of ancient remains, including cisterns and caves carved into rock.[5]
In the census of 1596, the village was located in the nahiya of Sara in the liwa of Lajjun. It had a population of 12 households, all Muslim. The villagers paid a fixed tax-rate of 25% on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, summer crops, olive trees, goats and beehives, in addition to occasional revenues; a total of 9,000 akçe.[8]
The Dutch lieutenant van der Velde travelled in the area in 1851–2. He noted that Scottish missionaries in 1839 had found many old wells and other old remains in the area. He also described the village (called Rumuni) as being small, and identified it with ancient Hadad-rimmon (see Zechariah 12:11).[9]
French explorer Victor Guérin visited the village in 1863 and 1870, and described it as being reduced to "twenty miserable dwellings". He did not notice any traces of antiquity, except for a few cisterns in the rock and a working well. Guérin agreed that the village was Hadad-Rimon, but disagreed with Jeromes assertion that Hadad-Rimon was identical with Maximianopolis.[10]
In 1870/1871 (1288 AH), an Ottoman census listed the village in the nahiya of Shafa al-Gharby.[11]
A small village of mud and stone, near the foot of the hills, with wells to the west and olives below. This village seems to mark the site of Maximianopolis, a town 20 Roman miles from Caesarea and 10 miles from Jezreel (Zer'in), the ancient name of Maximianopolis being, according to Jerome, "Hadad Rimmon".[12]
In the 1945 statistics, the population of Rummana (including Khirbat Salim) was 880 Muslims[15] while the total land area was 21,676 dunams, according to an official land and population survey.[16] Of this, 2,876 dunams were allocated for plantations and irrigable land, 10,507 for cereals,[17] while 27 dunams were classified as built-up areas.[18]
^Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 16
^Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 55
^Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 99
^Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 149
^Government of Jordan, Department of Statistics, 1964, p. 25
^Grossman, D. (1986). "Oscillations in the Rural Settlement of Samaria and Judaea in the Ottoman Period". in Shomron studies. Dar, S., Safrai, S., (eds). Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad Publishing House. p. 349