Archaeology for Beginners

Quick answer

• Craft a Brush from a feather, a copper ingot and a stick.
• Brush suspicious sand and suspicious gravel to dig out one item each.
• Trail ruins hide rare armour trims, and warm ocean ruins can give a Sniffer egg.

Archaeology is slow and relaxing, and it's the only way to get some of the game's rarest decorations.

Outfit & Armor Trim PreviewerPreview every Minecraft armor trim and material on your own skin, mix and match each piece, with your cape or an elytra, in a pose of your choice→

How it works

1. Find Suspicious sand or Suspicious gravel. They look like normal sand and gravel with slightly different texture.
2. Hold the brush and hold use on the block.
3. An item slowly appears and pops out.

Where to dig

Structure	Block
Desert pyramid	Suspicious sand
Desert well	Suspicious sand
Warm ocean ruins	Suspicious sand
Cold ocean ruins	Suspicious gravel
Trail ruins	Suspicious gravel

Trail ruins are mostly buried underground in taigas, old growth birch forests and jungles, so you'll need to dig around them.

The best finds

• Pottery sherds: there are 23 to collect. Most come from archaeology.
• Armour trims: trail ruins hide the Host, Raiser, Shaper and Wayfinder trims.
• Sniffer egg: only from warm ocean ruins. Find two and you can breed more sniffers.
• Music disc: Relic comes from trail ruins.

Decorated pots

Craft a Decorated pot from 4 pottery sherds or bricks. Each sherd puts its picture on one side of the pot. It holds one stack of items.

Cheat sheet

• Brush: feather, copper ingot, stick
• Sand: deserts and warm ocean ruins. Gravel: cold ocean ruins and trail ruins
• Breaking a suspicious block destroys its loot
• Rare trims are in trail ruins