International audience Religious concepts were an integral part of the formative period and both the functional and structural evolution of the oppidum of Manching (Germany). The urban area incorporates several sacred areas including a central sanctuary and other building zones. Apart from those architectural remains, the Celtic town includes secondary features of ritual complexes such as an area of abandoned pits and wells in the centre of the oppidum. Depositions of various object categories characterise religious activities which considerably differ from communal, public or semi-public cults in established architectural sanctuaries. This zone of offering pits represents a constitutive element of urban religious life and performed as a "sanctuary in the open".