Inscriptions hold a key position in Vietnam' Sino-Nom heritage. Interms of quantity they are of great abundance, and they contain qualitative information which is often difficult, even impossible to find in other existing documentary sources. The oldest known inscription dates from the year 618 and bears the title "Inscription of the Temple of Precious Peace of the Commandery of Jiuzhen of the Great Sui". The corpus of inscriptions thus contains a voluminous quantity of documentation, allowing research on the majority of the country's villages and historical sites. It also offers great diversity of content. Collection of the inscriptions, first undertaken by the École francaise d'Extrême-Orient (EFEO), involved making rubbings of the steles which were found - and still remain - in the villages of Vietnam. The EFEO thus assembled a collection consisting of 20,980 rubbings in large sheets if paper, corresponding to 11,651 steles and bells. Each inscription saved in this directory includes a Sino-Nom section, location, date, composer, dimensions, and content summary.