You might expect archaeologists digging through a medieval latrine to uncover broken pottery or scraps of fabric, but not a notebook still full of writing. Yet during excavations beneath the center of Paderborn, researchers uncovered a small wax tablet book containing handwritten notes that survived underground for roughly 700 to 800 years.
The palm-sized notebook, discovered during construction work for a new city administration building, appears to date back to the 13th or 14th century and may have belonged to a merchant jotting down transactions, reminders, or daily thoughts. Because reusable notebooks like this were never meant to last centuries, archaeologists rarely get the chance to study this kind of informal medieval writing.
"This is the only such find in all of North Rhine-Westphalia. It sounds strange, but for us archaeologists, latrines are almost always a treasure trove,” said archaeologist Barbara Rüschoff-Parzinger in a translated press release. “In no other case has the entire book been preserved as an archaeological find, as was the case here."
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A Medieval Notebook Found in a Medieval Latrine
The book contains ten wooden pages coated in wax, allowing the owner to write notes with a pointed stylus (a writing tool used to scratch letters into wax pages) and later smooth the surface flat for reuse.
The text appears to have been written by a single person, though the notebook was held at different angles while in use, suggesting it functioned more like a practical, everyday notebook than an organized manuscript.
The writing is in Latin, and the owner likely belonged to Paderborn’s upper-middle class, possibly a merchant, since literacy at the time was mainly limited to the clergy and educated elites.
Most surviving texts from that period were religious manuscripts or official records that people deliberately preserved. A reusable notebook was not something anyone expected to survive for so long.
How the Writing Survived for 700 to 800 Years
The notebook survived because the latrine created a damp, airtight environment that protected the materials from oxygen and decay. The leather cover, wooden pages, wax surfaces, and even much of the handwriting remained intact.
"Packed in a wet clod of earth — and initially quite inconspicuous — the object only became clear during cleaning in our restoration workshop in Münster. And indeed, even after so many centuries in the ground, the latrine find still had a rather unpleasant odor,” said conservator Susanne Bretzel in the press release.
The inner pages were so tightly sealed that dirt barely reached them. The wax also preserved traces of older erased writing beneath newer notes. Archaeologists hope advanced imaging methods can separate those overlapping layers and recover entries that the owner once tried to erase.
The notebook’s leather binding carries rows of embossed lilies, a symbol associated during the Middle Ages with purity, royalty, and divine favor — another clue that its owner may have been wealthy.
The Latrine May Hold More Clues
The notebook was not the only object pulled from the medieval latrines beneath the city. Archaeologists also uncovered barrels, pottery, knives, basket fragments, and pieces of silk fabric, some of which were cut into small rectangular strips that may have been repurposed as toilet paper after their original use.
“As soon as this latrine can be assigned to a specific plot of land, archival research could be used to try to identify the residents of that plot. Then, in the best-case scenario, it would be possible to link the wax tablet to the name of a specific person,” archeologist Sveva Gai said.
For now, conservators are focused on preserving the fragile notebook while specialists analyze its wax, wood, and leather. The restoration process could take up to a year before experts fully transcribe and translate the Latin writing inside the wax pages.
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Article Sources
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- This article references information from the The Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe (LWL): Rare find in Paderborn
