A medieval notebook believed to have belonged to a local merchant surfaced unscathed, miraculously, as a wet lump of dirt in a latrine, or toilet, in Paderborn, Germany.

At first, the object that surfaced was inconspicuous, packed in a wet clod of earth. Archaeologists described the odor to be “rather unpleasant.”

Once they penetrated the repulsive outer layer, however, they discovered a real treasure — bringing to mind the Buddhist saying that “from the muck, comes enlightenment.”

While cleaning the object, they discovered that the damp, airtight soil had preserved a medieval ten-page notebook with text still legible.

Hailed as “one of the most unusual medieval discoveries in the region,” beyond its exceptional state of preservation, inside archaeologists expect to find valuable insights into everyday life and living conditions in medieval Westphalia.

The notebook, perfectly intact

The 700-800-year-old notebook, bound in leather, wood, and wax, measured approximately 3.94 x 2.95 inches.  Eight of the ten pages were double-sided, while the first and last pages were filled with wax on one side. They were packed into a leather case with a lid. However, the notebook had acquired another case by the time archaeologists uncovered it: damp soil.

It must have fallen into the toilet by accident, archaeologists believe, as opposed to having been cast away. But that stroke of bad luck became auspicious centuries later, as they only needed to clean the exterior of the book.

The surface was decorated with an embossed pattern: “small, regular rows of lilies… Perhaps we can deduce something about the origin of the piece from this in the future, or even identify its place of manufacture,” stated archaeologists in a press release.

The text was written in two directions, depending on how the book was held, which suggested to archaeologists that it was used as a notebook. “The inner pages were tightly bound so that there was no dirt on them.” The wood hadn’t even warped, so the wax is still intact along with the writing inside.

What did they write?

As the precious object had fallen into a toilet, they suspect that bad luck ended up proving otherwise. But who? “Who wrote the book, and what purpose did it serve?” Archaeologists asked in a press release. As the book is being cleaned, they suspect it might have been a merchant, “jotting down business transactions and recording his thoughts in note form.”

As the medieval text was written in Latin, as per Archaeology News, this suggests that the penholder was educated. Merchants were a small demographic that could read and write.

“The stylus is pointed at one end to scratch the letters into the wax. The other end of the stylus was flat or spatula-shaped. This allowed the wax to be smoothed and the writing erasable, making the tablet reusable.”

The city of Paderborn will provide information about further finds from the excavation on May 21st at 11:00 a.m. and offer a guided tour of the site, a press release concluded.