Kastell Langenhain

Kastell Langenhain was a Roman fort on the Upper Germanic Limes near Langenhain-Ziegenberg in Hesse. The site lies about 350 m behind a river crossing where the Limes turns from the Taunus ridge into the Wetterau plain. The modern village now spreads west of the fort, leaving the old ramparts above the river valley open and largely undeveloped except for a single farm. The fort once housed the Cohors I Biturigum Aquitanorum equitata, a 500-strong mixed infantry-and-cavalry unit raised in Aquitaine. Evidence points to its arrival around 115 and continued use until the Limes fell about 260. After the Romans left, locals dismantled the walls, reusing stones for the nearby Gothic church where a reused inscription names the Legio XXII Primigenia. Visitors today see open fields above the Usa valley with no standing ruins. Aerial photographs reveal the outline of two outer ditches and traces of an earlier timber-and-earth fort inside the stone walls. East of the fort, remains of the civilian settlement include a pottery kiln, a probable bath-house and a cemetery disturbed by illegal digging. Excavations in the 1980s uncovered two cellars along the road to Friedberg, one containing a rich 3rd-century pottery hoard.