Saalburg- a Restored Roman Fort, and a look at the Limes

A Roman fortified settlement was built as a square with entrances on four sides.  One was the primary, with the others as secondary access gates.  Any could serve as a sally port as well should the location come under siege.

There is a model of the site located in the museum which showed that as the area grew due to mercantile business settlements grew around it. 

Left to right:

Number Ensignia / Manipul Ensignia / Legion Sign / Cohort Ensignia / Vexillum

Left, a replica of a manjaniq on display.

Right, two views of the limes in the area near Saalburg.  Most of the limes was a dry moat with a heaped dirt "wall."  Behind on the Roman side there was typically a road and this was used to engage in patrols along the length of the border.

However, a few sections of the limes actually had small stone walls, and one of these is to the southwest of Butzbach.  I found a stretch of this buried deep in a wooded area with a small gap where a trail cut through it.  I was hiking the area in the rain when I encountered it and identified it on my map.  Unfortunately I didn't take a photo of it, probably because I didn't have my camera with me.

Left, interspersed along the limes were a series of towers.  This is the foundation of what was once one of these towers, the stone laid here almost 2,000 years ago. 

Efforts have been made to reconstruct the smaller fortified outposts along the limes.  While this seems laudible, this tends to obscure any ruins that remain.  Saalburg is a good exception to provide people an idea of what a Roman settlement looked like on the frontier with Germania.  But to reconstruct a number of smaller sites seems excessive.

Nevertheless, Saalburg and the limes are well worth a visit.