Cohausen, Carl August von

Officer, archaeologist, curator

born: 17.04.1812 in Rome

died: 02.12.1894 in Wiesbaden

Cohausen came from a bourgeois family of civil servants who were ennobled in 1792. Cohausen spent his youth in Heidelberg, Koblenz, Mannheim and Saarburg. In 1831 he joined the Prussian Corps of Engineers, became an officer in 1834 and then attended the United Artillery and Engineering School in Berlin. In 1841, he left to deepen his knowledge of the ceramics industry as second director of the Villeroy & Boch earthenware factory in Mettlach.

In 1848, he returned to the army as a first lieutenant, where he continued to work as a pioneer and engineer officer. He devoted himself in particular to fortifications. Assigned to Mainz in 1851, Cohausen was involved in the expansion of the fortifications there before being transferred to Ehrenbreitstein as a captain. From 1858-62 he was seconded to the military commission of the German Confederation in Frankfurt am Main.

In 1862 he was a contributor to the work on Julius Caesar published by Emperor Napoleon III. In 1868, the Prussian government commissioned him to investigate the site of the Hildesheim silver treasure.

In March 1872, he was promoted to colonel on the occasion of his retirement. After leaving military service, he devoted himself entirely to antiquities research. He became curator of antiquities in the administrative district of Wiesbaden and dealt intensively with the pre- and early history of this part of the country. He tirelessly traveled the district and researched burial mounds, fortifications, ring forts, castles and land fortifications, on which he wrote numerous publications.

He was also particularly interested in provincial Roman archaeology. The exploration and expansion of the Saalburg, with the collaboration of the Homburg master builder Louis Jacobi, is regarded as his life's work. He wrote his main work on the Limes: "Der römische Grenzwall in Deutschland. Military and technical description of it" (1884-86).

Cohausen was a member of the board of the Roman-Germanic Central Museum in Mainz and worked on the commission for research into the Limes. From 1885 he was a member of the administrative board of the Germanic National Museum in Nuremberg. He was also a corresponding member of the Berlin Society for Anthropology, Ethnology and Prehistory.

In Hofheim, where he carried out many excavations, the so-called Cohausen Temple was erected in his memory.