Breitenbrunner Bannholz Limes Watchtower (Wp 10/9)
About
The watchtower in the Breitenbrunner Bannholz forest carried a double footprint: a substantial mound from its original timber tower plus the rubble of a stone successor built twenty meters to the north. It stood on the Odenwald limes near Breitenbrunn, part of the chain linking the forts at Würzberg and Hesselbach. Roman troops raised the first wooden tower here during the early second-century push that opened the Odenwald frontier under Trajan. Its paired remains make it one of the more legible tower sites on the entire Odenwald line.
What happened here
A small stone tower with a timber top, sited so that it can see the next one along the line. Half a dozen men live in it. They watch the ground in front, and they watch the tower on either side. A signal — fire and smoke at night, something visible by day — passes a warning down the chain far faster than a rider can, though it can only carry a message that was agreed in advance. The rest of the time it is a lookout post on a road, a river crossing or a frontier line, and the work is boredom punctuated by inspections. Supplies come up from the fort behind. Towers on a frontier stand within sight of each other for hundreds of miles.
Sources
Nearby
Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →