Le Teil - Saint-Étienne de Mélas

A church is known in Mélas (now part of Le Teil), located at the Roman road connecting Lyon and Nîmes, since merovingien times. A noble lady named Fredegonde founded a nunnery in Mélas end of the 6th century, dedicated to Saint-Étienne and Saint Saturnin.

Today´s church is younger. It consists out of three parts built in different times.

Seen here is the roof of the oldest part, an octogonal chapel, dated the the 9th/10th century.

The chapel could have been a baptistery or a burial chapel. I tend to the "baptistery" side, though the location is somehow odd, but the place around was sureley different about a thousand years around. The church, that we see now, did not exist - and there was of course no parking lot on a niveau way higher than that on which the chapel was erecetd.