The archaeological excavations at Saalburg Castle began in 1853. The artefacts were initially kept in Homburg Castle and, after the death of the last Landgrave Ferdinand in 1866, became the private property of Grand Duke Ludwig II of Hesse-Darmstadt, who had them transferred to Darmstadt.
The Saalburg Association was founded in Homburg in 1872. The aim of the association was to support research about the fort and the Roman settlement and to create a museum for the finds. The first step was taken with the construction of the burial house in 1872. The Roman graves were to be reverently presented inside. The temple-like building was erected in the centre of the burial ground of the Roman settlement along the Roman road to Nida, today's Frankfurt-Heddernheim.
It was not until 1878 that Empress Friedrich, the mother of the future Emperor Wilhelm II, succeeded in returning the collection from Darmstadt to Homburg. The town made the large room of the former café in the Kurhaus available for the establishment of a museum. The museum and its first curator, Louis Jacobi, celebrated its opening on 27 July 1879.
In 1897, Kaiser Wilhelm II announced the reconstruction of the Saalburg and wanted to establish Germany's central Limes museum there. Due to the constant increase in finds from the excavations and numerous donations, such as the finds from the excavations in Stockstadt in 1902 and the collection of Consul Niessen from Cologne in 1905, the Horreum building was erected for this purpose and opened in 1907.
By order of the Prussian Minister of Culture, the finds from the 45 km long Taunus section were given to the Saalburg Museum. To this day, the finds from the Zugmantel, Kleiner Feldberg and Saalburg forts and the Limes sections in between form the centrepiece of the exhibition.