Overview
- Archaeologists excavating sealed medieval latrines in Paderborn recovered a palm-sized leather case containing a wood-and-wax notebook that has remained remarkably intact after roughly 700–800 years underground.
- Conservators at the LWL restoration workshop cleaned the outer surface and found ten wax-coated pages with Latin cursive etched in a single hand, with some lines written over earlier text.
- The leather binding is embossed with a fleur-de-lis and the notebook was found with pottery, a knife, barrels and finely woven silk scraps, details that suggest an educated, upper‑class user and make a merchant a leading hypothesis.
- Teams plan noninvasive scans such as micro-CT and multispectral imaging plus scientific analyses of the wood, wax and leather to recover overwritten text and to guide a conservation process that could take up to about a year.
- The find offers a rare, direct glimpse of everyday urban life in the later Middle Ages and highlights how airtight, waterlogged cesspits can preserve organic materials that usually decay, with the notebook slated for eventual exhibition at the LWL Museum.