Qira

The village was situated on the western, rocky bank of Wadi Qira and overlooked the plain of Marj ibn Amir. A closely related community, Tall Qamun , lay only 2 km to the northeast, and because the two were so closely associated, some people in the region spoke of them as 'Qira wa Qamun,' (Qira and Qamun). The al-Muqatta' River, which was 4 km to the north, formed the northern border of Qira's lands. Qamun was number 113 in the list of towns conquered by the Egyptian Pharaoh Thutmose Ill in 1468 B.C. It was probably the site of the royal Canaanite city of Yokneam, which fell to Joshua (Joshua 12:22), and the Roman city of Cimona. The Crusaders built the castle of Caymont on the tell where Qamun stood.

Qira (wa Qamun), classified as a hamlet by the Mandate-era Palestine Index Gazetteer, had a square layout; its houses were made either of cement or of stone and mud. Bedouin pitched their tents in Qira during the sedentary months of their migratory cycle. Its population was Muslim, and it had several springs in various parts of its lands. Its agricultural economy was based on grain, which was planted on 261 dunums in 1944/45. The villagers also planted vegetables on small plots of land and earned extra income from livestock breeding. From the archaeological evidence on the surface of the site, it appears that Qira wa Qamun was built over an earlier settlement. Surveys of the region have produced evidence of at least nineteen archaeological sites in the area east of the village. The most important of these are Tall Qiri and Tall Qamun, both of which were excavated by the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.