Sellenplatte Limes Watchtower (Wp 10/11)
About
Watchtower Wp 10/11 stood on the Sellenplatte above Lützelbach, one of the northern posts on the Odenwald stretch of the limes. Its crew watched a forested section of frontier where the patrol road climbed between the forts at Seckmauern and Würzberg. The tower began in timber and earth, following the pattern of nearly every post the Roman army raised along this line in the frontier's first decades. Its foundation mound still survives in the forest, visible today to hikers following the marked Limes trail.
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 →