Minecraft’s 1.20 update will add archaeology, new tools, and more

For years, Minecraft has been one of the better games for going exploring underground. You can essentially dig and go on long journeys under the cubical world’s surface. That being said, the game hasn’t been much about preserving the things you find in the ground. That is, not until the 1.20 update releases later this year, which will add blocks and tools for archeology.

In a blog post announcing the incoming feature, it was revealed that a new kind of Sand block is being added to desert biomes called Suspicious Sand. Using the new Brush tool, you can brush away this sand and reveal random objects, including a new item called Pottery Shards. When you gather four Pottery Shards, you can craft them together to make a new Pot that has various symbols on it. It doesn’t look like you can put anything in them, and they appear to be just decorative items.

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As of this writing, only the Pottery Shards were revealed as items you can get in Suspicious Sand, but hopefully there will be more archeological items you can gather in the future. We imagine that gathering fossilized bones of Creepers and making a museum exhibit with them would be really cool.

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Mojang are always working on adding more things to Minecraft, so it is cool to see that they are taking a look at archeology. This, as well as Armor Trims, will be just some of the features and items that come to the game. If you want an early look at these features, they did say a Snapshot and Beta build will be updated for Java and Bedrock Editions soon, though they did not specify the length of time to wait for it.