The Ox Tower stands like an exclamation mark at the northern end of the city wall! With a height of more than 40 meters and a diameter of almost 12 meters, it was one of the strongest city towers in the Rhineland. It showed like no other tower the power and self-confidence of the medieval town of Oberwesel. While most of the towers were only sober functional buildings for defense, the Ochsenturm was characterized by special ornamental forms in addition to some highly modern defense-technical refinements. The battlement is supported by a delicate pointed arch frieze, an elegant spiral staircase rises in the masonry, the five floors inside could be heated, and as a special luxury there was a privy. For it, a bay window was specially built high above the moat. The ox tower is crowned with a delicate octagonal top with a crenellation. It used to serve as a lug-ins land for the guards. Round towers with such an attachment are called butterfaced towers. Until the present day, the guardroom of the Ox Tower was used for navigation. Watchmen regulated the shipping traffic from up there with flag signals. The Ochsenturm stands on a bend in the Rhine, from where one can see all the ships upstream and downstream. Today, at the foot of the Ochsenturm, there is a modern landmark station that electronically regulates shipping traffic in the Rhine's narrow valley.