An archaeological dig started in 2017 at Jaljulia uncovered, at about a five-meter depth, a half-million-year-old "paradise" for
Homo erectus hunter-gatherers, including hundreds of
knapped flint hand-axes. According to the
Israel Antiquities Authority, recurrent occupation of the site indicates that prehistoric humans possessed a geographic memory of the place and could have returned here as a part of a seasonal cycle. In Roman times the village was known as
Galgulis, while during the
Crusader period it was referred to as
Jorgilia in 1241 C.E. It has been suggested that a Crusader sugar factory was later turned into an Ottoman
mosque.
Mamluk Sultanate In 1265 C.E. (663 H) Sultan
Baybars allocated equal shares of the village to three of his
amirs. One of these, amir
Badr al-Din Baktash al-Fakri, included his section of the village in a
waqf he established. Excavations of a building close to the
Mamluk khan yielded ceramics dating from that period. The mosque is locally known as Jami' Abu´l-Awn, which associates it with the 15th-century religious leader Shams al-Din Abu´l-Awn Muhammad al-Ghazzi, who is known to have come from the town. The architecture of the mosque is, according to Petersen, consistent with a 15th or early 16th century construction date. At present the structure consists of one large vaulted chamber, and three small barrel-vaulted cells. A large second chamber to the west was destroyed by British artillery during
World War I. and it was still functioning in the 16th century, when it was mentioned in an
Ottoman firman. In the 19th century it was seen by Guérin, who described it as a beautiful khan with a (ruined) polygonal
minaret. Petersen, who surveyed the structure in 1996, found the courtyard entirely overgrown and it was not possible to detect any features within; however, he notes that a 19th-century visitor had mentioned that there was "a great round well" in the centre.
Ottoman Empire In 1517, the village was included in the
Ottoman Empire with the rest of
Palestine, and in the 1596
tax-records it appeared located in the
nahiya (subdistrict) of Banu Sa´b, part of
Sanjak of Nablus, with a population of 100 households, all
Muslim. The villagers paid taxes on a number of crops, including
wheat and
barley, as well as "summer crops", "occasional revenues", "goats and bees", and a market toll. There was also a poll tax,
jizya, paid by all the inhabitants in the
Sanjak of Nablus. Total taxes were 18,450
akçe, of which 1/6 went to a
waqf. Jaljulya and its khan continued to function as an important stop on the Cairo-Damascus road. Jaljulia appeared under the name of
Gelgeli on
Jacotin's map drawn-up during
Napoleon's
invasion in 1799. In 1870,
Victor Guérin found that the village had six hundred inhabitants. In 1870/1871 (1288
AH), an Ottoman census listed the village with 62
Household in the
nahiya (sub-district) of Bani Sa'b. During the
Sinai and Palestine Campaign of
World War I, the village was on the Ottoman front line and was damaged by British artillery.
British Mandate In the
1922 census of Palestine conducted by the
British Mandate authorities,
Jaljulieh had a population of 123 Muslims, increasing in the
1931 census to 260, still all
Muslim, in a total of 60 houses. By the
1945 statistics, the village had 740 inhabitants, all Muslims. They owned a total of 11,873
dunams of land, while 447 dunams were public. Jews owned 365 dunams of land. A total of 2,708 dunams were for
citrus and
bananas, 175 dunams for plantations and irrigable land, 9,301 for cereals, while 15 dunams were built-up (urban) land.
Israel After the
1948 war, Jaljulia was on the Israeli side of the ceasefire line and its became part of Israel. In 2010, a tennis school was established in Jaljulia by Iman Jabber and Daniel Kessel. In 2011, 50 girls and 20 boys signed up for tennis lessons. The school organizes coexistence matches between Jaljulia and
Ra'anana. ==Notable residents==