Ober-Olm

Ober-Olm is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Mainz-Bingen district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.GeographyNeighbouring municipalitiesOber-Olm’s neighbours are Mainz-Layenhof, Mainz-Finthen, Mainz-Drais, Mainz-Lerchenberg, Mainz-Bretzenheim, Mainz-Marienborn, Klein-Winternheim, Mainz-Ebersheim, Nieder-Olm and Essenheim.HistoryFinds in the municipal area have yielded the first clues to settlers here in the 4th century BC. In AD 97, the former consul Vejento had a temple built to the forest goddess Nemetona near his Klein-Winternheim landholding, a richly furnished Roman settlement in the Ober-Olm cadastral area of Villenkeller. Ober-Olm itself arose in the 6th century as a Frankish establishment and had its first documentary mention in 994. The name “Ulmena Superior” from 1190 was formerly associated with elm trees, Ulme being the Modern High German word for this tree; however, this word was not borrowed into German from Latin (ulmus) until the 12th century. The formation of the placename Ulm and an ending —ena is typical for a brook’s name, and these were often also used as placenames. It can be assumed that Ulmena was the name that the Germanic settlers between Ober-Olm and Nieder-Olm gave the Selz. The few Roman people left still used the name Salusia for the brook, which was the name that eventually stuck to it. Ulmena, however, remained as well, and clove to both the centres now bearing Olm as part of their names.