Saint Martin des champs Church

Saint-Martin-des-Champs is in the middle of fields about 500 metres from the village of Oltingue. It was the mother church of Oltingue and 3 defunct villages. In the 7th century, a notable family erected a small cemetery chapel on the site of an ancient Gallo-Roman rural settlement. Now classified as a Historic Monument, archaeological excavations conducted in 1989 identified four development phases from the 12th to the 13th century. The present church was built in the late 13th century and was rebuilt in 1868 (neo-Gothic windows and doors). The excavations unearthed various burials still visible today: a monolithic sarcophagus (7th, 8th century), a stone tomb from the 8th century: it contains a skeleton whose elevated feet rested on the bones of five individuals, proof of much re-use. Funeral deposits included a Carolingian shard, an iron belt buckle and a Charles Le Chauve era coin struck around 840 in Strasbourg. A stone box contained, in addition to the first deceased skeleton, the remains of the bones of thirty individuals. It was found near the site of prehistoric flint tools, but also of Roman pottery, carved tiles and stones. On the hill in Oltingue, stone wall remains and a domestic pit bear witness to the presence of a missing Gallo-Roman fortification.