Hillfort of Otzenhausen

Thousands of beams were attached to the ramparts which, as the diagram shows, probably presented a vertical stone wall to the exterior.

Straight beams, connected lengthwise and two feet distant from each other at equal intervals, are placed together on the ground; these are mortised on the inside, and covered with plenty of earth.

This work, with respect to appearance and variety, is not unsightly, owing to the alternate rows of beams and stones, which preserve their order in right lines; and, besides, it possesses great advantages as regards utility and the defence of cities; for the stone protects it from fire, and the wood from the battering ram, since it (the wood) being mortised in the inside with rows of beams, generally forty feet each in length, can neither be broken through nor torn asunder.

In the Roman times a small temple of 2.15 x 2.70 metres, dating to the 2nd or 3rd century A.D. was built of quartzite rubble stone and brick-shaped sandstone.

During the Thirty Years War (1618–1648) the inhabitants of the surrounding villages again took refuge in the remains of the Celtic fort.

The first documented appearance of the circular ramparts occurred within the Grimburger Salbuch, a geological register of 1589, the first picture of the enclosure in the Gazette de Metz from 1836.

The same year, Count Villers von Burgesch addressed a petition to the Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm III to bar the inhabitants of the nearby villages to carry off stones for use as building material.

Reacting to this petition the Crown Prince, later King Friedrich Wilhelm IV visited the fort in 1837.