Saalburg

Saalburg (Kastell Saalburg)
The Porta Praetoria (main gate), and circuit wall
Limes	ORL 11 (RLK)
Section (RLK)	Upper Germanic Limes, High Taunus section
Date(s) occupied	A.1) – A.2) c. 85/90 to c. 90/100 B) c. 90/100 to c. 135 C.1) c. 135 to c. 155/160 C.2) c. 155/160 up to 260
Type	A.1) – A.2) Schanzen B) Numerus fort C) Cohort fort
Unit/Formation	A) unkn. vexillatia B) unkn. numerus C.1) − C.2) Cohors II Raetorum civium Romanorum equitata
Size	A.1) 0.11 ha A.2) ? B) 0.7 ha C.1) − C.2) 3.2 ha
Construction	A.1) – A.2) Earth and wattle B) wood and earth fort C.1) wood/stone wall C.2) mortared stone wall
Condition	reconstructed
Location	Bad Homburg vor der Höhe
Height	418 m
Previous fort	Kleinkastell Heidenstock () (southwest)
Following fort	Kleinkastell Lochmühle ()(northeast)

The Saalburg is a Roman fort located on the Taunus ridge northwest of Bad Homburg, Hesse, Germany. It is a Cohort Fort belonging to the Limes Germanicus, the Roman linear border fortification of the German provinces. The Saalburg, located just off the main road roughly halfway between Bad Homburg and Wehrheim is the most completely reconstructed Roman fort in Germany. Since 2005, as part of the Upper German limes, it forms part of a UNESCO World Heritage site. In the modern numbering system for the limes, it is ORL 11.

The earliest examinations of the site were undertaken from 1853 to 1862 by the Nassau Antiquarian Society under the direction of Friedrich Gustav Habel (1793–1867). But the great impulse to provincial Roman archaeology in Germany came in 1892, when the Reichs-Limes-Kommission (the Imperial Commission for the Roman borders), then chaired by Theodor Mommsen began to research the course of the Limes Germanicus in its entirety, as well as the location of all its forts. In the course of this enormous project, not completed for decades, intensive exploration of the Saalburg and its surroundings was pursued by the archaeologists charged with this stretch of the limes, Louis Jacobi (1836–1910) and his son and successor Heinrich Jacobi (1855–1946). In 1897, Kaiser Wilhelm II, following a suggestion by L. Jacobi, ordered the reconstruction of the Saalburg fort according to the detailed results of its excavation. As a result, the Saalburg became the most completely reconstructed fort on the entire limes. It also houses the Saalburg Museum, one of the two most important institutions dedicated to the study of the German Limes (the other being the Limesmuseum of Aalen). From 1967 to 1993, the museum was directed by the well-known archaeologist Dietwulf Baatz, whose many publications fostered a broad interest in provincial Roman archaeology well beyond specialist circles.