The tower's foundations lie under a commercial building at the corner of '
and ' in the immediate vicinity of
St. Peter's Church. The area is a light
geest, where the first settlement of Hamburg has been documented. The base of the tower was discovered on 30 August 1962 during demolition work for the St. Peter's Community Center. Initially it was assumed that displaced
boulders from nearby '''' had been found, which is believed to be the oldest street of the city of Hamburg, and an ancient trade route. But after further excavation the remaining foundations of the tower were uncovered. Until the 2008 excavations, it was thought to be the stone house of the Archbishop Adalbrand, built as a round tower and mentioned in the Hamburg church history of 1074 by
Adam of Bremen. Further construction on St. Peter's Community Center enabled new studies of the historic area, leading to the discovery that the tower's foundation coincided with the creation of a
moat to the west, located right in front of the '''', a timber soil
palisade known as the first
fortification of Hamburg. With this information the
dating was corrected to the 12th century. A possible interpretation is that the tower represents a side gate or a part of the
city gate. == The finds ==