History
Beit Surik is situated on an ancient site on top of a hill. Fragments of Corinthian columns have been found, and a mosaic floor, with dedicatory inscription in Greek and tabula ansata was excavated in part by LH Vincent in 1901.
The village was a fief of the Holy Sepulchre in the twelfth century.
The village was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517 with all of Palestine, and in 1596 it appeared in the tax registers as being in the nahiya of Jabal Quds in the liwa of Quds. It had a population of 21 households, all Muslim. The inhabitants of the village paid taxes on wheat, barley, olive trees, vineyards, fruit trees, grape syrup, molasse, and goats and/or beehives.
An official Ottoman village list of about 1870 showed that "Bet Surik" had a total of 32 houses and a population of 125, though the population count included only men.
In 1883, the Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine described Beit Surik as a "small stone village on a hill-top. To the east in a flat valley is a spring with lemon and other trees. The place appears to be ancient, having rock-cut tombs near the spring."
In a census conducted in 1922 by the British Mandate authorities, Bait Suriq had a total population of 352; all Muslims, while in the 1931 census the village had 87 houses and a total population of 432, still all Muslim.
In 1945 the population was 480, all Arabs, while the total land area was 6,879 dunams, according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 581 were allocated for plantations and irrigable land, 1,827 for cereals, while 33 dunams were classified as built-up areas.
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