Gaulskopf Limes Watchtower (Wp 4/16)
About
The stone watchtower on the Gaulskopf stood 397 meters up in the Taunus hills, about three kilometers from the fort at Kapersburg it helped to guard. Rebuilt as a full-scale reconstruction in 1926, it survives today as one of the best-restored towers anywhere on the frontier. Its garrison held sightlines across the eastern Hintertaunus and out over the Wetterau plain below. The tower belonged to the wave of posts Trajan's army raised along this stretch of the limes as the frontier hardened into a permanent 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 →