Words from the well at Gallo-Roman Châteaubleau

No better demonstration of the general opacity of Gaulish exists than the largely undeciphered eleven-line-long inscription on a tile from the Roman-era settlement at Chateaubleau (Seine-et-Marne). This site, perhaps to be identified with the town Riobe from the Peutinger map,1 has been the source of several finds of inscriptions on tiles, but none is so long and difficult as that which was discovered in 1997 in the remains of an enclosed well (F25) in Zone 6 of the Grands Jardins section of the Chateaubleau excavations.