Morgane Andrieu's book is based on her 2015 doctoral thesis and presents a study of graffiti on ceramics in three civitas capitals of Gallia Lugdunensis: Autun, Chartres and Sens. Both the structure of the book and the methodology are simple and clear. A chapter outlining the scope of the study is followed by the catalogue, and then analysis and interpretative comparison of the material from the three towns.

Ch. 1 explains the historiographical, geographical and chronological framework of the study, establishing the author's intellectual frame of reference and clearly defining the terminology and vocabulary to be employed. In particular, the different types of graffiti (epigraphic, anepigraphic, figurative, plant motifs, geometric motifs, figures) are discussed, as well as the methods used to create the inscriptions (prior to drying and firing of the vessel, after drying and prior to firing, and after firing). These different methods reflect three different types of inscriber as well as three phases in the life of the object. A. restricts herself to only considering incised marks and leaves aside any type of painted mark. The method used proposes a model through which the study of graffiti can be extended to other contexts and sites, with a bibliographic frame of reference encompassing France, Britain, Germany, Italy and Switzerland (but missing out the Iberian Peninsula). A. also offers several clear synthetic diagrams, which could be used in other studies. While some are a little too minimalist in their presentation (e.g. fig. 1 which attempts to synthesise a complex chronology), others are particularly useful (e.g. figs 16 and 17, which illustrate the differences in the rendering of letters according to different engraving methods).

Ch. 2 contains an exhaustive inventory of the 701 graffiti found in the collections of the three cities concerned, covering more than 200 pages. The catalogue is well presented and the drawings and photos will provide useful comparative material for other researchers.

The third chapter aims to analyse the nature of the messages inscribed: marks indicating ownership (‘appartenance’ – A. prefers to reserve the term ‘propriété’ for Roman citizens because it depends on a specific legal concept), content of vessels, religious dedications etc. Some very useful pages (316–21) are devoted to quantities, prices, weights and measurements indicated by the grafitti. Attention is also paid to ductus (the direction and sequencing of inscribed strokes) and palaeography (371–91), punctuation and arrangement of inscriptions (391–400). Finally, the author places each element in its original archaeological, geographical and chronological context. This section, which includes distribution plans by city and district but also by occupation phase, is a real asset for understanding the place of writing in the socio-economic context of each civitas capital.

The last chapter finally compares the three sites, but also attempts an infra-regional comparison (for Autun with Bibracte and for Chartres with Le Mans) and supra-regional comparison (covering Switzerland, Germany and Britain). The author also proposes a comparison between what she calls the writing of the living (graffiti itself) and that of the dead (lapidary funerary epigraphy). The conclusions are occasionally ambiguous, especially for the supra-regional comparisons, but the proposed interpretations are nuanced.

The main interest of this study is the exhaustive nature of the survey of the archaeological stores and museum and private collections in each of the selected cities, which provides solid statistical data. The whole of this work thus opens up a discussion of the place of writing in local society (artisanal and domestic). In her conclusion, the author returns to the quantity of fragments observed in Autun: out of 1,900,000 examples just 676 were inscribed. This provides an important baseline for studying literacy in these civitas capitals, a point that is addressed at the very end of the study's conclusion.

Despite some misprints and discrepancies in the formatting (especially in the index of places) and some repetitions made necessary by the very nature of the material, the book is a pleasure to read and is an important milestone for other comparisons in the emerging field of ‘graffitology’.