Pottery remains found in the area date back to the 2nd century BC. and are associated with the traces of massive foundations of an unknown building probably of Nabatean construction. The area appears to have remained under the Nabatean sphere of influence, outwith the Hasmonaean and Herodian Kingdoms, until AD 105 when Trajan annexed the Nabataean Kingdom.[6] A large rectangular hill-top fort probably dates from the 4th century AD. A church and associated buildings have been dated as having been built before AD 464.[7] Auja al-Hafir was struck by the great plague which swept the Eastern Mediterranean around AD 541.[8] During the 1930s a large number of papyri, dating from the 6th and 7th century, were found.