In this richly illustrated edition, researcher and India specialist Bauke van der Pol brings together all this VOC heritage in India for the first time. As a guide, he leads the reader past fortresses, country houses, warehouses, facto rows and beautiful cemeteries with unique grave monuments. Using old images and contemporary photographs, he shows what the Dutch fortresses looked like and what can still be found in the Indian landscape today. He explains how the Dutch ended up in the different regions of India and explains how their relationship was with maharajahs and other Indian rulers. He describes the precious merchandise that the Dutch brought so far from home and shows how contemporary Indians deal with the traces that these strangers left in their country.

Written in stone is about the Indian east coast, formerly called the Coromandel Coast. The impetus for the book was the discovery of a Hindu temple carved from the rock, where more than a hundred names of Dutch people were carved on the walls between 1662 and 1818 as if it were a 'guest book'. Who these people were, what they did here and what their lives looked like: this is what this book is about.
In addition, it provides a description of the cemeteries with transcripts of the funerary texts and the biographical data of the persons involved. With its hundreds of unique photos and its thorough approach based on contemporary archive material, this book is an important source of knowledge about the life of the higher VOC servant.
Written in stone appeared at the exhibition 'Photos from distant countries: Ferry André de la Porte' in the Rijksmuseum on the occasion of 400 years of the VOC.