Heumatte Limes Watchtower (Wp 10/21)
About
Watchtower Wp 10/21, known locally as In der Heumatte, held a post on the Odenwald limes between the forts at Hesselbach and Würzberg. Its crew relayed signals along a stretch of frontier where dense forest cut sightlines down to a few hundred meters at a time. The tower started as timber and turf, part of the wave of construction Trajan's army pushed through the Odenwald in the frontier's opening decades. Twentieth-century surveys first mapped its mound and surrounding ditch when archaeologists traced the full course of this limes sector.
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 →