To the east of the Mercantour National Park, in the Haute-Roya region, the Merveilles and Fontanalbe valleys revolve around Mont Bégo, culminating at 2,870 m altitude. In this harsh environment of high secular pasture, texts, drawings, and signatures appear on the rocks’ surface. Alongside Bronze Age engravings from agro-pastoral settlements, a wealth of inscriptions was incised over the centuries. Though less known and publicized than proto-historic figures, pastoral engravings provide a rare and intimate record of peasant life over the last centuries. The soft rock of these valleys, formed by Quaternary glaciers, makes them a particularly fragile legacy that is gradually being lost.

Studying pastoral engravings means following the paths of the great transhumance movements that structured a vast shared cultural and linguistic territory. From the engraved sheepfolds of the Plaine de Crau (Provence) to the high mountain passes of the Italian Piedmont region, these engravings echo the constant migrations of people and herds.

With the contribution of historical and ethnological studies, this research is an opportunity to explore type design as a tool to serve a precious popular history. As part of a broader exploration of the societal relationships between the flat land and the mountains, the twofold aim is to question graphic practice itself in the light of a rich, popular corpus and to consider peasant history as an essential component of the territory.