In a discovery that has surprised even seasoned archaeologists, a medieval wax notebook dating to the 13th or 14th century has been found perfectly preserved inside a latrine in Paderborn, Germany. Alongside it, fragments of fine silk were recovered, which experts believe were used as toilet paper — a detail that speaks volumes about the wealth of whoever once used that pit. The find, announced by the Regional Association of Westphalia-Lippe (LWL) on May 12, 2026, is described as unique in all of North Rhine-Westphalia.
The discovery came during construction work for a new city administration building in Paderborn's historic center. The site lies in a sensitive urban zone near the immunity wall of the Abdinghof Monastery, bounded by Marienplatz to the south and Abdinghofstraße to the west — an area that in the Middle Ages was home to the upper ranks of the urban bourgeoisie. Excavations, which began in December 2024, uncovered five medieval latrines, one of which contained the notebook alongside wooden stave vessels, a knife, proto-stoneware pottery, textile remains, and fragments of basketry.
The medieval latrine, half excavated. (Denkmal3d, Heike Tausendfreund /LWL / Sveva Gai)
A Pocket-Sized Record of Medieval Life
The notebook measures just 10 by 7.5 centimeters in its leather cover, with the wooden tablets inside measuring 8.6 by 5.5 centimeters. It comprises ten pages in total: eight are double-sided and coated with wax, while the first and last pages have wax on one side only. The whole thing is bound and enclosed in a small leather pouch with a flap, and the leather cover is fully intact, decorated with a stamped pattern of small regular rows of lilies covering the entire surface.
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Leather binding in which the wax tablet book was found, with lily embossing. (S. Bretzel/LWL)
LWL conservator Susanne Bretzel was the first person to examine the object after its extraction from the ground. She described the find arriving at the restoration laboratory in Münster wrapped in a clump of moist soil, initially unremarkable in appearance.
"In a wet clump of earth — and at first quite inconspicuous — the object only revealed itself during cleaning in our restoration workshop in Münster," she said. "And indeed, even after so many centuries in the ground, the latrine find still had a rather unpleasant smell."
It was the damp, airtight conditions of the Paderborn subsoil that proved the notebook's salvation, preserving the wax and its inscribed text for some 700 to 800 years.
Legible Latin and a Likely Merchant Owner
The text scratched into the wax pages is written in Latin using a cursive script. Paderborn's city archaeologist, Dr. Sveva Gai, notes that both the language and the style of handwriting date the object to between the 13th and the end of the 14th century. The writing is arranged in two alternating directions, depending on how the book was held, yet appears to come from a single hand, a trait Gai interprets as characteristic of spontaneous, everyday use.
"The Latin language — also an indication of an owner from the upper social class — and the characters of the cursive script date this book to the period from the 13th to the end of the 14th century," she said.
The small notebook dates from the 13th to the 14th century. The Latin script carved into wax is clearly visible. (S. Brentführer/ LWL)
Gai's initial hypothesis is that the notebook belonged to a merchant living in Paderborn, who used it to jot down shorthand notes on commercial transactions and personal reflections. Merchants were among the few literate segments of medieval society, able to read and write at a time when such skills were largely confined to the clergy and nobility. As for how such a valuable object ended up at the bottom of a latrine, Gai offers a simple explanation: "It may simply have fallen in by accident." The wax also preserves traces of earlier, erased writings — texts that were smoothed away with the flat end of the stylus to make the tablet reusable — and these underlying layers remain clearly legible. High-tech imaging methods are planned to separate these overlapping strata of text, and a formal transcription has already been commissioned.
The high-quality fabric remnants were also found in the latrine, likely used as toilet paper. (S. Bretzel/LWL)
Silk Used as Toilet Paper: Evidence of Elite Status
Alongside the notebook, the same latrine yielded fragments of silk fabric, some torn into neat rectangular pieces. LWL conservator Bretzel noted that these were very fine textiles, some decorated, and speculated that they had once formed part of high-value garments that were repurposed as toilet paper once the clothing was no longer serviceable.
"The silk pieces from the latrine were partly torn into rectangular pieces, some extremely finely woven and decorated," she said. "Perhaps this was toilet paper, after the garment was no longer useful."
The use of silk for personal hygiene is a striking indicator of considerable wealth. Gai herself acknowledged that this detail reinforces the theory that the latrine's owner belonged to the upper ranks of Paderborn's medieval society. If the latrine can be attributed to a specific plot in the city's historical archives, researchers may eventually be able to link the notebook — and its anonymous author — to a named individual from 13th or 14th-century Paderborn. LWL head of cultural affairs Dr. Barbara Rüschoff-Parzinger summed up the significance of the find:
"This is the only find of this type in all of NRW. In no other case has an entire book survived in this way."
The notebook is currently undergoing conservation in Münster and is planned for display at the LWL Museum in the Kaiserpfalz in Paderborn once the process is complete.
Top image: Restorer Susanne Bretzel holds the wax notebook in her hands. Source: LWL-Archaeology for Westphalia/E. Daood / LWL Press Release
By Gary Manners
References
Carvajal, G. 2026. A notebook from the 13th century still legible and pieces of silk used as toilet paper discovered in a latrine in Paderborn. La Brujula Verde. Available at: https://www.labrujulaverde.com/en/2026/05/a-notebook-from-the-13th-century-still-legible-and-pieces-of-silk-used-as-toilet-paper-discovered-in-a-latrine-in-paderborn/
LWL. 2026. Seltener Fund in Paderborn. Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe. Available at: https://www.lwl.org/pressemitteilungen/mitteilung.php?urlID=63721
Milligan, M. 2026. Medieval notebook found preserved in latrine. HeritageDaily. Available at: https://www.heritagedaily.com/2026/05/medieval-notebook-found-preserved-in-latrine/158064
