Cool Finds

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 | Correspondent

May 20, 2026 3:11 p.m.

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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-sized 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 discovery was made during excavations leading up to the construction of a municipal administrative building in central Paderborn. The latrines uncovered beneath early modern buildings had been sealed tightly for centuries, acting as a time capsule of everyday life in the area 800 years ago.

For archaeologists, latrines are almost always a treasure trove, Rüschoff-Parzinger says in the LWL statement. The humidity and soil conditions of the region, combined with the airtight nature of the chambers resulted in the perfect environment for preserving such a delicate artifact.

And that wasn’t the only thing it preserved. Even after so many centuries in the ground, the latrine find still had a rather unpleasant odor, LWL conservator Susanne Bretzel comments in the statement.

As for how valuable objects end up in such lowly environments in the first place, it’s likely accidental—similar to loose change slipping out of someone’s pocket and into a modern commode. Researchers suspect this is how the wood and leather notebook landed in the German latrine. Whether the owner didn’t notice or decided that retrieving it wasn’t worth the effort, that was just the beginning of the artifact’s story.

“We need to remember that people dropped things in toilets then, as now,” historian Katherine Weikert says on the “HistoryExtra” podcast. “It lands in a smoosh, then it gets covered up. … If that cesspit doesn’t get cleared out or gets abandoned, it’s just there waiting to be found, which is amazing.”

Michele Debczak | Read More

Michele Debczak is a writer and editor based in Brooklyn, New York. She appears in seasons four through six of History Channel’s “The Food That Built America,” and her work has been featured in Mental Floss, IndieWire, Eater and Vice.