As literacy is a human skill precursory to the development of libraries, Hella Eckardt's book on the “material basis of writing in the Roman world” will inform library historians and others interested in exploring how “literate mentalities” are created from physical forms (6, 40). Following the heels of archaeologist Ellen Swift, who recently analyzed everyday objects in Roman Artefacts and Society: Design, Behaviour and Experience (2017) as artifacts that could “prompt or constrain behavior and thus perpetuate but also challenge cultural practices,” Eckardt explores the material context of the tools and techniques that ancient writers used (225). However, notwithstanding a clear and careful synthesis of evidence and argument, Writing and Power in the Roman World: Literacies and Material Culture may be too erudite or specialized for readers lacking at least some background in ancient history or Roman archaeology.Eckardt, who is professor and head of the Archaeology Department at the University of Reading, has authored a number of books and articles on Roman Britain. In 2018 she was voted “Archaeologist of the Year” by the readers of the British monthly Current Archaeology. Casting her eyes over the entirety of the Roman empire for this book, Eckardt divides it into three parts: (1) an overview of a range of writing implements and a brief discussion of how these implements were utilized and by whom; (2) a rather exhaustive (and exhausting, for this reader) analysis of the morphology, provenance, and geographic distribution of a study corpus of 440 metal inkwells, complemented by Eckardt's “full catalogue of all recorded metal inkwells,” searchable on the website of the Archaeological Data Service (https://doi.org/10.5284/1039969); and (3) a series of wide-ranging discourses on the social identities and symbolic values associated with the practical and funerary uses, and written and iconographic representations, of the full range of writing tools in the Roman empire and its periphery. These sections—on writing practices, on physical matters, and on power dynamics of the literate—might well constitute three separate books, as the main conclusions of each lead in somewhat different, and slightly discordant, directions.The “first book” (chapters 1–3, 6)—on the panoply of writing implements and practices—is of interest to perhaps the greatest number of readers. It catalogs the archaeological and written evidence, including tablets (made of wood and wax, lead, or thin leaves), styli and cases for styli, wax spatulae, seal-boxes, black and red inks, single and double inkwells (made of bone, ceramic, glass, silver, lead, pewter, or leather), pens (made of reed, copper-alloy, silver, bone, and ivory), bone rulers (used to smooth wax tablets), sponges, ostraca, papyrus scrolls, parchment, portable leather cases for writing sets, and funerary monuments depicting writing tools. Using examples already well known to experts, Eckardt summarizes where, how, and by whom these material objects were utilized across the Roman world, including a comparison of military and urban sites, stenographic and secretarial settings, standing and sitting writing postures. The treatment is brief, but it tantalizes with arguments, such as the claim that writing was not associated solely with slaves and lower-class copyists (librarii) as has commonly been suggested, but that high-status individuals wrote “themselves, especially in private correspondence and when creating original literary works” (44). At other times, the assertions are more modest, or couched in caveats. Eckardt conjectures, for instance, that the decreasing number of double inkwells by the later Roman period indicated either “a decline in specialist equipment for professional scribes or simply a change in practice with separate and unconnected inkwells used for different colours” (109).The “second book” (chapters 4, 5, and 7) consists of the author crunching an incredible amount of data about 440 metal inkwells from published archaeological surveys, gravesites, museum reports, shipwrecks, hoards, and antiquities trade catalogs, along with her first-hand examination of “a limited number of inkwells” (59). Generously illustrated with numerous hand-drawn illustrations, maps, charts, tables, and about twelve full-color photographic plates, it should be read in conjunction with the searchable online database already mentioned. Indeed, Eckardt's online catalogue contains detailed item-level physical descriptions of 490 recorded metal inkwells, of which she claims that about 50 are not in fact inkwells at all, but rather pyxides, lantern burners, or box fittings which previous scholars misidentified. She identifies some 20–25 different types of metal inkwells, such as “Type Biebrich” or “Inkwells with highly decorated lids of Type Cologne,” and tracks the spatial and social distribution of those types.The “third book” (chapters 8–11, and conclusion) builds upon the typologies established to study those inkwells that were verifiably discovered as part of grave goods, as well as all forms of writing equipment (spatulae, styli, tablets, pens, knives, and so on) found in the context of funerals, and those found with board games, accounting, and grooming equipment. This shift of focus to the funerary presentation of literacy—and how literacy communicated elite, gendered, and age-related identities of individuals found in their graves—is admittedly jarring. Still, several important conclusions can be drawn about literacy based on Eckardt's reading of the academic literature on Roman burial practices. For example, by referencing epigraphic and osteological evidence, Eckardt demonstrates that “writing equipment is commonly found in female graves, and even the graves of children,” and is shown on tombstones and wall paintings that depict women (19). She finds “a surprising number of female burials with writing equipment,” reflecting either “burial rites (i.e. the deposition of gendered artefacts and the likelihood of osteological analysis) … [or] the display of otium (leisure and literary pursuits) and education” (229). Even some of the modest conclusions of Eckardt's “third book” seem quite speculative.Still, the value of Eckardt's extensive work cannot be denied. Traditional scholarship on Roman writing and literacy—notably William V. Harris's Ancient Literacy (1989)—averred that about 10 percent of Romans were literate and that the levels of literacy could be judged mainly on quantification of inscriptions and literary texts. By looking instead at small, quotidian objects, the book(s) of Hella Eckardt's Writing and Power in the Roman World: Literacies and Material Culture points the way toward a more encompassing and fluid description of the practice and status of writing in the Roman world.