On the trail of Medieval and Early Modern wax tablets: Rhineland-Westphalia, Germany

In December 2025, the TabulaRasa project undertook an extended research mission across Rhineland-Westphalia, one of the European regions where Medieval and Early modern wax tablets survive in particularly varied forms and contexts. Between 15 and 19 December, the mission unfolded as a sustained journey through archives, museums, archaeological collections, and conservation laboratories in Dortmund, Essen, Bochum, and Köln. Over five days of continuous work, the team moved between different institutional settings and different ways of approaching written artefacts, allowing wax tablets to be observed not as isolated objects, but as part of broader systems of writing, administration, education, and material care.

Rhineland-Westphalia was deliberately selected as a field of investigation because it preserves a particularly high number and wide variety of wax tablets, spanning different periods, functions, and contexts of use. Within a relatively limited geographical area, the region brings together archaeological finds and archival survivals that offer complementary perspectives on erasable writing. In several cases, excavations have yielded wax tablets preserved in good or even exceptional conditions, while municipal and museum collections safeguard objects that remained in use or in institutional custody over long periods. This concentration and diversity of material make the Rhineland a particularly favourable setting for examining the multiple trajectories of wax tablets, from everyday use to long-term preservation.

The research mission was carried out by Doris Oltrogge and Daniele Ferraiuolo, in close collaboration with Ester Ferreira, Andreas Krupa, and Gesa Sperlich. While the mission as a whole developed through visits to archives and museums across the region, the work conducted in Cologne was shaped in particular by joint activities in the laboratory of the Institut für Restaurierungs- und Konservierungswissenschaft of the Technische Hochschule Köln, where material examination, photographic documentation, and technical discussion were carried out together within the framework of the TabulaRasa project.

This post is intended to provide a fresh and immediate impression of our mission, while the in-depth examination of the inscribed artefacts and related issues will be carried out as the project progresses (any comments and suggestions are welcome!).

Writing in the city

The mission opened at the Stadtarchiv Dortmund, where the team was welcomed by Dr Henrike Bolte, responsible for conservation. The object examined here is modest in scale: a single wax tablet, the sole surviving element of what was originally a wax tablet book of at least ten tablets produced for the city administration between 1316 and 1325. Despite its fragmentary survival, the tablet offers an unusually clear insight into the ways in which erasable writing could be integrated into institutional record-keeping.

The tablet’s binding system, closer to that of parchment codices than to typical wax tablet books, suggests a conception of erasable writing compatible with archival continuity. Rather than being treated as a support for highly ephemeral texts only, the tablet appears to have been designed to accommodate (also) long-lasting (portions of) administrative texts. Discussions with Dr Bolte focused on questions of storage, conservation history, and archival practice: how wax tablets were housed, how they circulated within municipal offices, and how their material properties affected their long-term survival.

Closer inspection revealed an exceptionally thin wax recess, beneath which a whitish layer becomes visible in unwritten areas and within the incisions of the letters. This feature prompted detailed discussion. It remains unclear whether the layer reflects later archival practices, such as the application of chalk or similar substances to enhance legibility. Whatever its origin, the presence of this layer points to a high degree of technical care in the preparation of the writing surface and highlights the complexity of wax tablet production in an archival context.

 

Essen: treasures from an archaeological discard context

A very different perspective emerged at the Ruhr Museum in Essen, where the team worked with Drs Reinhild Stephan-Maaser, Melanie Dropmann, and Dr Alexander Berner. Here, two small wax tablets discovered in 1926 in a former latrine context near Burgplatz offered a striking example of accidental preservation. These objects, dated between the late thirteenth and mid-fourteenth century, were never intended to survive beyond their immediate use.

Originally coated on both sides with a brown-yellow wax layer, the tablets now preserve only a part of it. Yet their surfaces are densely covered with incised writing, testifying to intensive use. Fixed together with a metal wire, they once formed a small, portable writing block, closer in function to a notepad than to a formal register. Early analysis identified a Latin narrative text alongside a draft letter, possibly related to a projected real-estate transaction. Subsequent study refinement placed the writing in the mid-fourteenth century.

Discussion around these objects naturally shifted from text to context. Whether the tablets were deliberately discarded as refuse or reached the latrine through other processes remains unknown. What they preserve, however, is a rare glimpse into everyday writing practices, far removed from the institutional environments of archives and chanceries. In this sense, the Essen tablets serve as an important counterpoint to the Dortmund material, highlighting the social breadth of erasable writing practices.

At the salt market!

The visit to the Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum brought the mission face to face with a very different scale of erasable writing. Made available thanks to Dr Michael Ganzelewski, a large wax tablet book dated to 1768 offered an unusually complete picture of long-term administrative practice in a Modern context.

Composed of fourteen tablets and still retaining its original binding and decorated leather cover, the codex was used by salt refiners to manage feudal obligations. In this context, wax tablets functioned as practical working tools, allowing obligations, deliveries, and calculations to be recorded, updated, and erased as needed within the cyclical rhythms of salt production and distribution. The durability of the binding and the care invested in the leather cover further highlight that this was a long-term administrative instrument, designed to accompany daily practice over many years.

Its excellent state of preservation offers a rare glimpse into the material culture of salt administration, where erasable writing played a central role in mediating between economic activity, legal frameworks, and routine record-keeping. Its wax surfaces preserve abundant traces of erasure by rubbing, and appears to preserve also traces of oil-based polishing, which resonates with an earlier recipe, also from German context, and will be the subject of in-depth investigation within the project. Writing, erasing, and maintaining were not occasional acts, but routine gestures embedded in the object’s working life. The book thus materialises the cyclical nature of erasable writing, where permanence is achieved not by fixing text, but by sustaining the conditions for continual rewriting.

The internal construction of the book further underscores its technical sophistication. Writing fields were created around thin base panels and reinforced by internal wooden bars, producing a structure capable of withstanding repeated cycles of use. Far from being a simple notebook, the object embodies a highly specialised response to the demands of long-term record keeping, where material durability and functional flexibility had to be carefully balanced.

Voices from a rebuilt archive

Cologne represented a pivotal stage of the mission, both in terms of the material examined and the intensity of collaboration. At the Historisches Archiv der Stadt Köln, the work was carried out with the active support of Dr Christine Feld, Judith Wagner and the Archive staff, who facilitated access to equipment and spaces and engaged in sustained discussion with the research team.

Two mid-fifteenth-century wax tablets, probably belonging to the same book, recovered from the debris following the collapse of the archive in 2009, proved particularly challenging. Both preserve multiple superimposed wax layers, including a well-defined black layer devoid of inscriptions. The recurrence of this feature on both tablets strongly suggests intentionality rather than accident, yet its function remains elusive. Was this unwritten layer preparatory? Was it intended for reuse, or did it serve a stabilising function? These questions remain open, but their very formulation underscores the analytical potential of the material.

One of the two tablets has been the subject of a detailed conservation study by Heike Schuler, while the other remains untreated. Examined side by side, they offered a rare opportunity to reflect on wax stratigraphy, surface preparation, reuse, and the limits of interpretation imposed by uneven documentation. The comparison also highlighted the value of integrating conservation data into historical analysis, a core objective of the TabulaRasa project.

Inside the laboratory: slowing down the gaze

The most intensive phase of the mission took place at the Institut für Restaurierungs- und Konservierungswissenschaft of the Technische Hochschule Köln, where several wax tablets are currently held on temporary deposit for diagnostic analysis and material study, while their permanent conservation remains with the Kölnisches Stadtmuseum. The laboratory provided an environment in which observation could slow down, allowing the team to focus on details that are often overlooked in more constrained archival or museum settings.

The team combined direct autoptic observation, microscopic examination, and systematic photographic documentation. Particular attention was devoted to traces of manufacture, binding and fastening systems, and evidence of use and maintenance. Complete catalogue records were established for the examined objects, contributing directly to the refinement of the TabulaRasa database design and to the definition of future analytical priorities.

Among the most striking artefacts examined in the laboratory was a handled wax tablet, dated to the late twelfth-early thirteenth century and recovered from an archaeological context that points to everyday use rather than formal archival preservation. The handled form immediately captures attention for its highly functional design: the handle suggests ease of transport and use, possibly allowing the tablet to be carried, suspended, or held while writing, and thus points towards contexts of mobility and practical, routine writing activities. Objects of this type are relatively rare in the archaeological record, yet they resonate strongly with medieval iconography, where handled tablets are frequently depicted in the hands of scribes, clerics, or administrative figures. The encounter between the material object, its chronological placement, and its visual counterparts offered a particularly evocative moment, bridging artefact, image, and practice.

Other features invited closer reflection rather than immediate interpretation. One tablet belonging to a small portable set of four tablets, dated to around the mid-thirteenth century, is characterised by a carefully executed crosscut and by a stylus recess with a spatula-shaped profile carved symmetrically in both directions, allowing the stylus to be inserted from either side. These features point to a deliberate and highly functional design, aimed at facilitating handling and use, and resonate with forms known from medieval iconography, where similar tablets are depicted in the hands of scribes and administrative figures. Rather than being reduced to a single explanatory model, these elements were discussed as part of a broader spectrum of technical solutions, to be further explored through the analytical work already planned on the material currently held in Köln. In this sense, close material observation opened up new interpretative perspectives rather than prematurely closing them.

Methodological reflections: observing wax tablets in the field

Over the course of five days, the mission developed a distinct rhythm, shaped by travel, institutional schedules, and the physical demands of working with fragile objects. Each day involved a careful balance between observation, documentation, and discussion, often extending beyond formal working hours. Notes were taken, photographs reviewed, and preliminary interpretations tested collectively, allowing insights from one location to inform observations at the next.

This cumulative process proved particularly valuable. Features first noted in an archival context could be re-evaluated in light of archaeological material, while laboratory-based observations sharpened attention to traces encountered earlier in museums and archives. The mission thus functioned as a continuous analytical sequence rather than a series of isolated visits, reinforcing the importance of recursive and comparative examination in the study of erasable writing.

Conducting autoptic analysis of wax tablets requires a specific methodological posture. Wax tablets demand slow, repeated observation, often under changing lighting conditions, magnification, and angles of view. Traces of manufacture, erasure, and reuse are frequently subtle, emerging only through careful comparison and collective discussion. Photography plays a crucial role, not merely as documentation but as an analytical tool, allowing surfaces to be re-examined after the object has been returned to storage.

The mission thus functioned not only as a data-gathering exercise, but also as an opportunity to refine shared observational practices within the TabulaRasa project. Decisions about what to record, how to describe it, and how to translate material observations into structured data were discussed continuously, ensuring coherence between fieldwork and database construction.

Across all stages of the mission, research emerged as a collective practice. Archivists, curators, conservators, and researchers contributed not only access and technical expertise, but also perspectives shaped by long familiarity with the objects and collections. Provenance histories, conservation choices, and analytical possibilities were discussed alongside material observations, often prompting new lines of inquiry.

This dialogic dimension proved essential. Wax tablets, fragile and often marginal within collections, reveal their complexity most clearly when examined through shared attention and sustained conversation. The mission thus reaffirmed the importance of collaboration as a methodological principle, not merely as a practical necessity.

* The materials presented in this post are currently being studied within the framework of the TabulaRasa project and will be the subject of forthcoming scientific publications.

---

The text only may be used under licence Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 4.0 International. All other elements (illustrations, imported files) are “All rights reserved”, unless otherwise stated.

---

---