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Let's talk about Archeology!

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Archaeology is coming to Minecraft in update 1.20, and you can try it out right now in Java snapshot and as an experimental feature in Bedrock!

This new system has several components, introducing a new craftable item (the brush) and new blocks (suspicious sand and decorative pots), as well as changes to desert temples and wells. You can read more about how it all works in the changelogs linked below. 

We're still developing archeology, so your thoughts and feedback are greatly appreciated as work continues in the lead-up to the final 1.20 release. Let us know what you think in the comments! 

How to test new Minecraft Features: 
https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/article/testing-new-minecraft-features

Latest Changelogs:

You can find all previous changelogs in the Knowledge Base in the "Beta Information and Changelogs" category.

 

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  • 97
    Registered User commented
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    The new Archeology pots look amazing so far! I think the top of them should change back to the old look in the early previews though

  • 305
    Registered User commented
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    Being able to "gild" these clay pots and artefacts would be super cool and would fit nicely with the new armour trims. Using all of the precious materials like diamonds, emeralds, gold, amethyst, lapis lazuli, etc, you could fill in the carvings and artworks of the pots to make them colourful and vibrant, revitalizing them for decoration. We've already had blocks that can "hold" items before like campfires and item frames, so I think this is probably reasonably doable.

  • 222
    Registered User commented
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    It sure is a great way to have players explore the world more closely. But it could do with a more indepth look into it.

    The brush feels like it should've been a recipe with sticks,feathers and string.

    The mysterious sand seems quite hard to find when just roaming around because of the places found and it's textures (where do I start brushing, etc.). More sites to find 'mysterious soils' could be a great way to make the concept grow along the world of Minecraft.
    Things such as clay, dirt and maybe even mycelium might be great places to have players brush around to find hidden shards.

    At this point the rewards I have gotten from placing the mysterious sand and roaming around the world are equal to a 'bad' loot chest. I feel like more unique items should be found through archeology:

    • More shards like: Horse, creeper, flower.
    • Perhaps totems for decoration. Like old relics that can be used to decorate an adventerers exhibition of finds.
  • 73
    Registered User commented
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    Archaeology seems like a cool basic feature with not much wrong with it. It is not very intuitive about where the suspicious sand in desert temples are, as sometimes sand generates inside and throughout the stairwell that leads to it. I have not yet found a dessert well, so I'm not sure how much generates there. I also think Suspicious Sand is a cool enough block to warrant its own crafting recipe, maybe even with an item in the middle to leave around the bases of friends and have them dig up their own treasure. Even without that, simply being able to craft the block would lead to better detail in sand decoration for dessert builds. 

  • 113
    Registered User commented
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    It would be really cool if you could find other types of artifacts that could be used as decoration for homes. Maybe even add an item used for crafting new tools/armor with a new ore too? It would also be cool if there were more armor upgrades found in these sites that aren't ore related. Maybe potion effects for armor and weapons. Also, new enchantments only found in dig sites and broken tools that you can find and fix using an anvil (possibly even a new tool only found broken in dig sites?).

  • 69
    Registered User commented
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    I kinda have 2 thoughts about it:
    1. Implement what old pot have, multiple shard that can be put on the pot and can connect with each other.Also smaller painting on there, since thats like one of the reason why people like the pots, and considering theres a lot of small painting or carving on pots.
    2.Or maybe more shard variant with different painting, to make it more customizeable/varied

  • 58
    Registered User commented
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    Maybe add more shards with different symbols like a withershard or an eye and/or shards like in the early trailer for the 1.17 on minecraft live where you can put them together for a story. Also use the system as shown in the mentioned trailer with the pots over a fire and where you can place the shards at the place on the pot where you look at. And also shards with random patterns like Zigzag lines

  • 163
    Registered User commented
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    Hi Mojang! I am a graduate student studying archaeology, and I wanted to say that you have made my year by announcing this! Everyone in my department that I've told has been equally excited, and we are all looking forward to seeing how y'all will expand it.

    There is only one piece of feedback that I have right now, and that is that archaeologists technically refer to pottery shards as "pottery sherds." I've included the Wikipedia article about them here if y'all want to check it out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherd. It's not a huge thing, but if you changed them from "shards" to "sherds" in-game then it would make a ton of archaeologists very happy!

  • 134
    Registered User commented
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    Suspicious gravel
    Just like how we have suspicious sand next to desert temples I like the idea of suspicious gravel in underwater ruins giving them more purpose and making archeology a little more accessible.

  • 134
    Registered User commented
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    The new system for Archeology seems incredibly promising. My primary feedback is that the recipe for the brush seems a bit weird. Personally, I think the recipe should be one stick, a copper ingot, and a feather arranged with the stick on the bottom, the copper ingot in the middle, and the feather on top. Otherwise, I'm excited to see this feature develop.

  • 117
    Registered User commented
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    I think there should be more pots variations. Kinda like the ones showed with the deep dark concept art and minecon live. I also think creating pots should retain it’s old mechanic like shown in 2020 and should have more colored variants to fill up the story telling theme and should also be able to store some items

  • 17
    Registered User commented
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    If you place down suspicious sand that is in the inventory, and brush it, nothing comes out of it. 

  • 104
    Registered User commented
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    I think there should be more shapes and sizes in pots and various locations to dig up in, like there is suspicious sand in the deserts maybe there can be a dirt, gravel or even sould sand varients. The loot should depend upon where we are digging it up, there should be various artifacts related to different structures in the game, along with some new underground ruined structures that can be used as dig sites and may even contain loot of their own. Oh and also, we should be able to dye the pots cause why not ;)

  • 53
    Registered User commented
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    The idea where you had to bake the pots via fire from minecon was very cool I'm kinda sad it's gone and it would be welcomed back. The way they looked before was much better, now they look very basic and kind of bland. I'm sure you know this but 4 shard designs is not enough, there should be like at least 12 or so, otherwise it gets repetitive fast. Other things besides just shards should be able to be found in the suspicious sand, maybe not diamonds or so but something like iron or a book or so wouldn't hurt, I thought you were going to have armor trims be found this way too, I'm kinda surprised some aren't maybe some like damaged, pre-trimmed, low level armor would lead to the story telling theme. I understand that you removed the idea of abandoned dig sites but there should be maybe something(maybe just like random mossy cobblestone akin to the megataiga) with some suspicious sand in abandoned villages. Again it would add to the storytelling aspect. If you gave the rare chance of mob heads being found in the sand it may again lead to storytelling by showing what took down the village.

  • 60
    Registered User commented
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    New pots are super, but why can't we put something into them? I understand that be really cheap replacement of shulkers, or it can make bundles useless, but... It will be really cool to enter the dungeon and break pots with treasures there.

  • 30
    Registered User commented
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    I'm really excited to see where archaeology goes for Minecraft!

    I think pots should have falling physics and shatter into shards/bricks when falling two blocks or more

  • 87
    Registered User commented
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    Brush recipe should include copper aswell

  • 38
    Registered User commented
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    We need dirt, sand and gravel layers back

  • 33
    Registered User commented
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    Well, I am glad that archeology is in our game, but in my opinion the old system was better.
    -Items in suspicious sand should be destroyed when you stop brushing it.
    -The brush has to be crafted with copper. It even has it in its texture.
    -Pottery shards could be placed on pots by a right click, not in crafting.
    For now, archeology isn't that great as it was in 2020 and I hope it will change.

  • 24
    Registered User commented
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    The pots look really nice in builds, but I feel like they could use some functionality. It'd be nice to be able to plant flowers in them, or put items in them like you would into a chest.

    Currently you can put a flower pot on top of it to simulate having flowers inside the decorative pot, but it causes some serious z-fighting.

  • 24
    Registered User commented
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    The brush could really use some more functionality so it's not used for a single thing. Maybe you could change a painting's texture with the brush or brush off the wax from waxed copper. It could also be used to brush off the text, color or glow from signs.

  • 42
    Registered User commented
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    Let's start in order:

    Brush: copper is visible on the texture of the brush, but for some reason copper itself is not used in crafting, which is very strange, this should be fixed. I also suggest the ability to add enchantments to the brush, or not enchantments but upgrades to the blacksmith's table.

    Suspicious sand: is a very nice block and would like to mine with silk touch to use in buildings. Also, I may have been unlucky, but I did not find suspicious sand near the temples and desert wells.

    Pots: I am delighted with pots, I want to offer a couple of mechanics for them. The first mechanic is that it will be possible to plant flowers that are 2 blocks high in a pot, this would be very beautiful. The second mechanic is the storage of water, honey, milk and other liquids or mixtures that can be drunk or eaten in the game. The third mechanic is to paint pots with 4 colors maximum, because pots are crafted from 4 bricks or shards.

    Archeology: is an interesting mechanic that needs more ideas, such as archeology being possible in biomes other than desert, such as mesa, savannah, mangrove swamps, plains, jungles, and so on. Also, in addition to pots and sniffer eggs, it would be necessary to add other artifacts that would either help in survival or in construction, but I hope you can come up with this yourself.

  • 16
    Registered User commented
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    I love archaeology so far but it would be nice to have more shard designs for the pots

  • 69
    Registered User commented
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    The brush should be made with stick, copper and a feather rather than sticks and string imo. Gives those two items more uses and just makes sooo much more sense with the texture

  • 54
    Registered User commented
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    I think crafting recipe for brush should include copper ingot. (because of the texture and also it would give another use for copper)

  • 8
    Registered User commented
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    This is a cool system! I’m glad that different sites have different materials.

    For villages, or other places where things are crafted, it would be interesting to have 3x3 patches of suspicious blocks laid out as various crafting recipes.

    It would also be interesting for crafting tables, when used by the player, to have a slight chance of converting nearby blocks into suspicious blocks containing a crafting ingredient they used.

    I agree with everyone wishing for more sites and more pot shards/sherds.

  • 25
    Registered User commented
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    I think that archaeology should be expanded to other structures such as the ocean ruins (especially so given that sniffer eggs are to be found in suspicious sand). I guess it would be harder to include other structures unless they introduced other suspicious block variants (e.g. gravel). 

    The pots look good but are currently lacking in customisation. I think more pottery shards/sherds should be added and the pots should ideally also be dyeable so they can be incorporated into more kinds of build.

  • 64
    Registered User commented
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    I can't say I'm fond of the crafting recipe for the brush! I had thought it'd use copper in some way at least.
    I saw a suggestion that was
      F F
      C F
    /

    / = stick
    C = copper ingot
    F = feather

    and i think that'd be much better

  • 15
    Registered User commented
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    I think that other structures that would fit with archeology would be the underwater ruins and the jungle temple.

    Suspicious gravel could also be added for the jungle temple and the underwater ruins of stone bricks

  • 46
    Registered User commented
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    Pottery definitely needs more work. More pottery shards should be added, and they should also be able to be dyed as well before being crafted into pots, so that pots don’t only have one color. Some cool pottery shards could include:

    1. Blank Pottery Shard
    2. Chevron Pottery shard
    3. Circular Pottery Shard
    4. Egg Pottery shard (depicts a Sniffer egg)
    5. Hoe Pottery Shard
    6. Sword Pottery Shard
    7. Axe Pottery Shard
    8. Flower Pottery Shard
    9. Creeper Pottery Shard
    10. Bone Pottery Shard

    These are just some ideas.