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From a Medieval Latrine in Germany, Archaeologists Extracted a Pristine Leather Notebook That Preserved Latin Cursive for Centuries
The writing in the booklet suggests it belonged to an upper-class merchant, who may have had a mishap while using the toilet 800 years ago

Michele Debczak, Smithsonian magazine (May 20, 2026)  

Includes exquisite photographs of the wood and wax booklet bound in leather with floral embossing.

Archaeologists working for the Westphalia-Lippe Regional Association (LWL) had a good feeling when they excavated five medieval latrines in the German city of Paderborn. Even so, what they uncovered from the dank chambers astonished them: an 800-year-old, pocket-size notebook containing ten pages in near-perfect condition.

The booklet is made of wood and wax and bound in a leather cover embossed with lilies, which signified purity in the medieval era, Richard Whiddington reports for Artnet. The binding was tight enough to protect the inner pages from the surrounding contaminants over the centuries. When LWL conservators opened it up, they found legible writing. The biggest challenge for transcribers will be in making out the words themselves.

The text is not easy to decipher, even for experts in the field, says Barbara Rüschoff-Parzinger, LWL cultural affairs director, in a statement from the organization. Individual words are recognizable, but the transcription will take some time, as some words may have been corrupted by incorrect spellings, she explains.

The wax layers on the pages allowed the writer to erase what they had written using the flat end of a stylus. A quick scan of the text revealed records of possible business transactions, suggesting the notebook may have belonged to a merchant.

The researchers plan to fully transcribe the book after analyzing its physical materials. It’s written in Latin, suggesting an owner from the upper class, city archaeologist Sveva Gai says, per the Independent’s Vishwam Sankaran. Another clue to the social status of the latrine users are scraps of silk fabric that were possibly used as toilet paper.

The booklet was 10 X 7.5 cm, overall smaller than an iPhone, I believe.  You could rewrite or overwrite on its wax pages with your stylus.

A colleague once dropped his precious fountain pen (Montblanc, I think it was) in the dreck at the bottom of a Nepali carpī चर्पी (I won't tell you how we retrieved it).

Incidentally, the Paderborn latrine still stunk after eight centuries.  It was one in a row of five latrines, all of which stank.

Selected readings

• Seltener Fund in Paderborn:  LWL-Archäologie präsentiert gut erhaltenes mittelalterliches Notizbuch, LWL-Newsroom (5/12/26) — numerous photographs of the excavation, excavators, the booklet, the writing in it, its cover, its carrying case
• 800-year-old medieval notebook found in German latrine still contains readable Latin writing, by Dario Radley, Archaeology News Online Magazine (May 16, 2026) — photographs of booklet and excavation site
• Scientists Found a Notebook in a Medieval Toilet, And It's Still Legible, Humans, ScienceAlert (23 May 2026), By Michelle Starr — more photographs of the writing in the booklet
• 800-year-old notebook and fancy silk toilet paper discovered in medieval latrine in Germany Archaeologists recovered the 10-page wax notebook with Latin writing and its leather carrying case from a medieval latrine in Germany, Kristina Killgrove's avatar, By Kristina Killgrove, Live Science (May 20, 2026)

[h.t. Hiroshi Kumamoto]

May 26, 2026 @ 7:30 pm · Filed by Victor Mair under Decipherment, Language and archeology

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