The old site lies on a hill, adjacent to the watercourse Nahal Zanoah, a stream that runs north and drains into
Nahal Sorek. Although listed in Joshua 15:34 as being a city in the plain, it is actually partly in the hill country, partly in the plain. The ruins of
Khurbet Zanuʻ which lie on a high hill south of the moshav are thought to be the ancient village of Zanoah, mentioned in Egyptian letters, later part of the
tribe of Judah (
Joshua 15:34), and in the "
Second Temple period ... reinhabited," as recorded in the
Bible (
Nehemiah 3:13). During the 1st-century CE, the village was known by the name
Zenoha. An
overhead power line now runs through the ancient site. The site reeks with antiquity, with the signs of an old settlement everywhere. The area of the old settlement is extensive, with razed structures that once stood as walls and houses. Shards of broken pottery are strewn extensively throughout the grounds, with several open-mouthed cisterns and
antres. Zanoah is mentioned in the
Book of Nehemiah as one of the towns resettled by the Jewish exiles returning from the
Babylonian captivity and who helped to construct the walls of Jerusalem during the reign of the Persian king,
Artaxerxes I (Xerxes). Nehemiah further records that those returnees were the very descendants of the people who had formerly resided in the town before their banishment from the country, who had all returned to live in their former places of residence. Whether the reference there refers to the Zanoah in the
Shefelah (Joshua 15:34) or to the Zanoah in the Judaean mountains (now known as
Khirbet Zanuta) is now unclear, as there were two places by the same name. Based on the archaeological evidence, Zanoah in the Shefelah was a settled village during the Persian period. According to the
Mishnah, compiled in the 2nd-century CE (Munich MS.,
Menahot 83b), the finest of the wheat used to grow in the valley adjacent to Zanoah, from whence it was taken for the
Omer offering in the
Temple.
Eusebius (3rd–4th century CE) mentions Zanoah in his
Onomasticon as a village "within the borders of Eleutheropolis (Beit Gubrin) on the way to Ailia (Jerusalem)," and which was still inhabited in his day.
C.R. Conder and
H.H. Kitchener described the ruins of
Khurbet Zanûa, visited by them in 1881. An archaeological survey of the site was conducted in 2008 by Pablo Betzer on behalf of the
Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA). The site has never been excavated. ==Gallery of the nearby Zanoah Ruin (Kh. Zanua)==