Just an FYI, this interpretation is NOT 100 percent set in stone yet. Even now I'm looking at things and saying to myself "well now hold on", but the general themes and ideas of this interpretation aren't changing.
A minor comment, but if the theorized warrior burial has no remains, then it might be a bodyless burial/remembrance to remember them. Implying the body was lost to something/somewhere it could not be recovered. Which would be a useful datapoint on the culture that made these structures.
One of the things I was thinking about the bones and coal representing remains is that there's one mob that drops them: The wither skeleton. Idk if it has any connections since we see skeleton heads there but no wither skeleton ones and there's no sign of a Nether portal anywhere (I don't think it is even possible for a ruined portal to be generated in or near these as well). It also made me think of the existence of a theoretical wither skeleton horse. Now that I'm writing this I was thinking about the "game theory" history of Minecraft and now I'm thinking as well they could have been experimenting about turning horse/people/skeletons into wither skeletons.
A number of these structures are named in the game files I know that's not the point of the exercise but I think it would be interesting to look over the discrepancies in what the structures are called and what the evidence shows
A couple thoughts: All the damaged hoes are diamond specifically, not the more practical iron, implies further ritual formality to the skulk gathering. Large ritual structures like temples often serve practical purposes to the community at large, Sumerian temples stored trade goods, the Hebrew temple had massive water cisterns, modern churches host various events/groups, etc. Some of the items found in a structure might not have to do with the primary purpose.
It may have also been ease of gathering. Iron doesn't spawn basically at all at the bottom of the world, where the city spawns, while diamonds spawn quite often.
This can also be survivor bias. For all we know, wooden hoes may have been a thousand times more prevalent than the diamond, but have not survived. The fact that only the most durable tool remains should cause any interpretation of that tool's importance to be given a lower degree of confidence.
that practical purpose thing could explain the potion in the ritual area, which seems like the odd-item-out (to me, at least). Ritual area, but also essentially a hospital?
28:47 if these are indeed mausoleums, its compelling to imagine the sculk sensors as a sort of symbolic protection against grave robbers, especially coming from a culture that seems to venerate if not outright worship the warden. "don't disturb these remains or you'll anger the warden" type of thing
The skulk also absorbs experience from mobs as they die nearby, and the warden has souls in his chest. Perhaps the warden was named such due to his job; To be a warden of the souls of the dead.
@@justsomejerseydevilwithint4606 To me, that makes it all the more an uncontrollable monster than a "jailer of the damned." It's not doing a "job" as much as it's merely hibernating for who knows how long since it first arose and murdered all who called that city their home! The Warden *_is feared..._* NOT RESPECTED.
@@stonnacc Being feared isn't the same as being respected. They're opposites, in fact. It's one thing if the Overworld's mobs respected the Warden like a kind of caretaker figure (someone who sees the dead to the afterlife) - but I think that's clearly not the case. Mobs are seemingly indifferent towards the Warden. They don't panic at his presence, immediately turn hostile, or run away if he gets close. To them, he's just "another guy." *_"WHY AREN'T YOU SCARED?!?"_* "Who the f%$& are you and why should we care..?" [Kills a Skeleton] *_"GET THAT SON OF A GUN!"_*
I think it is important to keep in mind the population of the ancient city were able to craft reinforced deepslate which is unattainable is survival. So some things found in chests may serve a purpose that is unrepeatable by the player.
That's assuming the reinforced deepslate was crafted. Just as portals in the Overworld can be created at the moment a Nether portal is entered, it could be that beings from an unknown dimension attempted to cross into the Overworld, causing the formation of a substance foreign to the world we know. The ancient city might have been built up around the empty portal frame much later. If the city's builders could have crafted that much reinforced deepslate, it's reasonable to expect the same block to appear elsewhere in the city, or stored in hidden chests for future use.
20:08 the saddle and horse armor tie into a common theme in almost ALL ruins in Minecraft, which is that, no matter the location, no matter how far-flung or how unreasonable and immensely difficult it would be to bring a horse there, there always seems to be saddles and horse armor, even in the end cities or here, at the deepest depths of the shadowy caves, even in the charred stone fortresses in the nether, there's horse armor and saddles. As such, I think it might be plausible to dismiss horse-related items.
@satsujin-shathewitchkingof6185 I think they just really like horses; The nether portal is the perfect size for a horse and rider, the nether fortresses, down where one block is the distance of eight, have long, highway-like structures and a higher concentration of horse armor and saddles than usual, and it's even confirmed in Minecraft Dungeons with player structures and towns bearing a rearing horse statue, you should DEFINITELY start asking questions about item descriptions, loot locations, and statuary in that game if you haven't, there's tons of good lore there.
The worship towards the warden makes a lot of sense when listening to the reconstructed version of the disk shards. The disk seems to include a record of events (along with some music since it’s reconstructed from shards of possibly different disks). In a part of the disk you can hear distant explosions, the warden being summoned, then a (reversed?) wither death sound. Inferring that the warden may have killed a wither that was hunting the people (hence distant explosions), hence worshipping the warden and constructing a city full of shrines and wool to walk on
@@saferhere I always assumed the disc was the story of an army entering the city after it became abandoned and then being unprepared for the warden, but if we take the idea that the warden and a wither fought as true, the army has two possible identities; 1) the founders of the ancient city; they happened across the area, placed blocks like dirt (audible on the disc), accidentally summoned the warden while escaping the wither, and that birthed the worship of the warden by the army. it would also explain why so much seems to be geared towards worship and giving offerings; they don't want the warden to return and attack the rest of them. 2) they're who summoned the wither and the disc could be an incomplete record of how the ancient city fell. the army comes without knowing that the warden exists (or believing it doesn't?), they either lure or summon a wither, and the warden is summoned either by its worshippers in the city or by the noises the army has caused. most mobs have no concept of loyalty and so the warden kills almost everyone. only one person needs to have survived to put the fragments of these discs away once the warden returned to its slumber, and a resident would both understand the need for silence and would want a record of the city saved.
@@CrowMaiden Or perhaps it's a historical record of a time the city was sieged by an outside army with the help of a wither, and how the warden 'helped' defend it
Fun Fact: When the update with the Ancient City was still being worked on, Mojang had made concept art for stone chests and stone vases, but it was scrapped. As to if they'll ever make a reappearance, I hope at least the vases do.
@daskalosBCE Would you take that into consideration going forward? Yes, it is cut content. But also gives good insights on the devs intentions. Are developer intentions something that personally is relevant to you and this project? Also. Would you be taking note of the actual audio of the fractured disk?
The sheer quantity of discs in the structure implies a culture with music, and the size of these sturctures when compared to other groups, and the fact they meddeld in redstone, music disc creation(an item not very common, and uncraftable by us, showing it may be very expensive to craft, and also the fact they where enchanters, an uncommon trait by many, may have made them very wealthy. And the hoes without silktouch may have been used to gain xp, for enchanting, to further prove the case that they are enchanters, and ontop of that, may have been used to stop the sculk from speading into buildings, likely which is why they are elevated, to slow its spread.
Considering the association of sculk and sound, music may have a great amount of significance in their culture. The surviving music discs might be their most significant songs, having multiple copies. I wonder if they play the broken music discs before breaking them.
26:20 I think the bottles of enchanting suggest explorer actually. Notice that the armour has mending on it, meaning it can be repaired with experience orbs. The fact that the armour is a very practical sort (it's just iron as opposed to something flashy like diamond), plus the fact that it's been designed to be repairable, and the means to repair it also exist in that chest. This leads me to believe this was the belongings of an explorer. Possibly the type to go out scouting and take field notes since we see an abundance of books too.
Alternatively a trader and the books are meant to be ledgers of trades, goods, coinage, etc etc. I think the two big indications I see in that chest is that a) this is a person who did a practical job and b) that job required note taking of some kind. Possibly an explorer, possibly a trader, possibly some other job that didn't require them to leave the city, who knows.
Here's some more information to tweak your take: Skulk Catalyst absorbs exp when things die on or near it, causing nearby blocks to turn into Skulk. That Skulk can then be mined to collect the exp orbs. Assuming this culture could craft things we the Player cannot (a fair assumption given the Reinforced Deepslate), it's possible that this explorer/scientist was studying the Skulk Catalyst, the way it interacts with exp, and potentially worked out a way to extract the exp to create the Bottles o' Enchanting (or, they're continuing the work of someone else who previously made the discovery, either way works). Either way you look at it, using Catalysts to gain exp requires monsters, so armor would be a sensible thing to wear, especially if you can Mend it.
@@SuperiorPosterior adding on to your point, perhaps the armour itself was created by this scientist as a result of their experience-related research. Perhaps, they discovered how to enchant armour with Mending, and used the bottled experience to test it.
I'm beginning to think that the whole Ancient City may in fact be a necropolis, and the Warden statue is an offering to the God of Death to bestow Wardens upon them as guardians of the dead. The whole vibe of the Warden screams cthonic eldtritch God.
It also contains farming equipment (the hoes) which are commonly associated with death, they also aid in removing skulk but that seems odd for a culture so reverent of it
It also vibes with what Skulk actually does. Killing things near Skulk spreads it onto nearby blocks. and breaking Skulk drops XP, so they explicitly feed off of the XP that drops upon death.
@@kazmark_gl8652 As of now, I've been taking it all into thought for inspiration for a WIP I'm excited about, so far. :D I'm plotting out a BE Behaviour Pack (basically a free-to-enjoy BE mod project) that's themed on an urban fantasy - Bloodstone. (I basically wanna use Minecraft as a stepping stone, in a sense, much like DOTA did with Warcraft.) I'm starting off with planned changes to the Deep Dark to make it feel more fun to explore and venture through! ❤️
26:02 This is a pretty big leap, but I believe an hypothetical crafting recipe for Echo Shards would involve Amethyst Shards and Sculk Blocks. (Maybe a knowledge lost to time?) Amethyst Shards are the items most ressembling to Echo shards, and they also happen to be found in this city. The recipe for the Calibrated Sculk Sensor also involves Amethysts and Sculk, so they _can_ be combined in some way.
8:42 i know this is not evidence found at the site but there is a pottery sherd of the warden that can be found in underwater ruins showing that this culture was wide spread enough for other societies to have art of the warden
I won't necessarily say that says much about the ancient city people as wardens can be encountered outside of a city and not all deep dark biomes has a city either
The Warden imagery suggests that the worshipping is directed to it or to Sculk in general. This would support the theory of animal sacrifices, since the Sculk's growth speeds up when something dies near it. This could also explain the amount of music discs in the chests - Sculk is closely tied with vibrations and sounds, and as a result playing music may play part in the rituals, for example different music is reserved for different kinds of ceremonies. The bones could be soms sort of ritual amulets or jewelry, because natural formations of Sculk include exposed bone - Sculk catalyst, shrieker, Warden. So, worshippers might wear bones to show their devotion. Interesting thing that you didn't mention is that the big ceremonial spaces with two altars and warden head in the center always have a skull placed at the lower level. I think it's possible that these are skulls of some important figures, maybe even "saints", because they are placed in public ritual areas where everybody can visit them. Another thing is that fire near the top altar is soul fire. Which either shows that the residents had access to the Nether, or that soul sand and soil can be produced with the usage of Sculk(since Sculk is able to absorb souls through catalysts, and utilise souls in shriekers and in Warden's chest)
I think it is safe to assume that the civilization that built the ancient cities had access to the Neather. they clearly could make diamond tools, but even then, their cities are deep enough that casting a portal is also completely possible. they could even have built some of the ruined portals found in the world or known about whoever did. its also possible that the reinforced deepslate structure in the center is a kind of Neather Portal.
26:00 Something that wandered into my mind. When you started talking about Echo Shards, I was thinking whatever this civilization my have been, knew how to craft the echo shards. However since there's no crafting recipe, it's something of a lost tech, something in the same vein as Greek Fire.
I doubt echo shards are a crafted material... They feel like a natural formation akin to Amethyst shards. It probably comes from the Sculk somehow, but whatever method of obtaining it is lost. What is interesting though is that despite Echo Shards and Compasses appearing in the chests, you can't find Recovery Compasses in the loot pool... Implying that they might have known _how_ to make one, but couldn't for some reason (perhaps it was forbidden, or perhaps they simply didn't have a use for it because they don't seem to be able to respawn like the player can).
I'd like to add that the sculk seems to have quite a bit of liquid in it occasionally if not always. The sounds are squishy and the sculk catalyst releases bubbles once a being dies nearby, suggesting that the liquid is souls in some way. This ancient civilization might have managed to extract this liquid during a sacrifice or death ceremony and use it for various purposes - such as marinating amethyst in it to make echo shards. Maybe, _maybe_ even making bottles o' enchanting and ominous bottles from it, judging by the color, effect activation and sculk breaking noises (both whispering whooshes) soulfire connection and skull-shaped particle effects (incredibly strong link, i know). This would explain where the illagers get their bottles and vex magic if those dark oak loving raiders are indeed pillagers. yeah, a pretty baseless theory but if any evidence is presented in the future, it might hint towards it
With the bottles of enchanting, and the way sculk grows by consuming experience, I lean toward researcher with that one residence. Living around the sculk seems to have been part of their livelihood and it makes sense to devote time to trying to understand it, and how to avoid awakening the warden. Im surprised we didn't talk about the human skulls in the red buildings, both had one. Those didn't just fall there, someone had to have put them there. For the light blue buildings, maybe these were tombs/memorials for people killed by the Warden specifically? Maybe the hypothetical warrior tried to fight it and lost, and there are no bones either because their body was consumed by the sculk or it just wasn't safe to retrieve them I also think it's very interesting that a people whose lives would seemingly require them to remain very quiet would have so many music discs. Almost every building has had at least one.
It kind of makes me want to test this in survival, but I suspect that the warden may be drawn to music in a similar way to allays- (which are both associated with blue?) and if the warden is already there, then finding a way to controll it and discouraging it from following YOU is pretty important. Perhaps the buildings with surviving records simply weren't attacked, or the ones with shattered disks only managed to distract the warden for so long before being blasted apart.
To add onto this. Other comments mentioned that pillagers were a later culture that plundered the city at some point. What if pillagers stole or took allays FROM the ancient city, and only their descendants survived because the original populations no longer had any caretakers? After all, music and amethyst shards are required for "breeding" allays, and this is the only place in the game both of those things are found in chests together, afaik
@@A11V1R15 MAAAAAYBE (I'm leaning far outside the window here) the skeletons once used to be humans, given that humans usually contain at least one skeleton. Therefor, it can be both a human and a skeleton skull.
My hypothesis for the disc fragments falls under the sacrifice or offering to the Warden. Like a "hey, I know you're sensitive to sound, so here is my favorite sound disc broken for you."
This may be a little strech but what if those disc where specifically created for that person or ritual and broken in the same ritual as a form of workshipping?. I mean if taking the theory of the mausoleum, maybe those discs would have specific songs for each person and when they died the discs where broken as a symbolism of that person dying. I say it again, this seems a strech but is what I thought as I saw the video.
Dude your comment on how the Warden has souls in its chest and that a mausoleum would have that be emblazoned in its architecture is genuinely a really sick observation
@@daskalosBCE "that could suggest the existence of ancient aliens who gave knowledge to the ancient builder or maybe the ancients builders are aliens... i won't said that it's alien, but it's alien. ancient astronaut theorists said yes" - History channel
@@daskalosBCE Stickman isn’t entirely correct in this assertion, tridents can also be obtained in the new trial chambers as a potential loot drop from the vaults, admittedly I don’t remember off the top of my head if they’re found in the normal or ominous vaults. Tridents are definitely most commonly found carried by drowned but I do think it’s worth noting that both the trident itself and a trident exclusive enchantment can be found in what are incredibly different underground structures.
Compasses in Minecraft don't point north, they point to world origin. Basically where your spawn chunks are. Funky bit, Compasses don't work in the Nether or End unless through a special means. The Compass will erratically point to every direction. You already mentioned Recovery Compasses, which yes, point to that player's last point of death. Though normal Compasses can be converted into something else. Interacting with a Lodestone with a Compass in hand turns it into a Lodestone Compass; this makes Compass orient to the Lodestone it is linked to, this allows a Compass to point to somewhere in the Nether or End. Lodestone Compasses however make that Compass only work on the dimension the Lodestone is placed on.
@quesothedogquesothedog that does make sense. After all, there are a lot of things in Minecraft that don't make sense when looking at it from our perspective, but when you put things together, there's a lot of evidence besides the compases that supports this.
Very interesting how much of the city seems to be almost ritualistic in nature. I wonder if there ever was any actual living quarters, or if it was simply for rituals... So many chests have bones, I've looted through Ancient Cities before but I've never really noticed how often you get bones from them. It's really interesting how much you managed to theorize that makes so much sense, based on how little information you're given. 33:30 Compasses point to your spawn point, so it's highly likely the items did belong to an explorer. They probably went great distances, and used their compass to return to the city or to whatever home they may have had back then. They probably died of natural causes, as that wouldn't degrade the armor-only hits to them would. It's likely they never even got into battle, avoiding them at all costs.
when i see coal and bones in one place, i think of wither skeletons, since they commonly drop both. on top of that, the chests have specifically soul torches, an item that requires nether-exclusive materials. perhaps this implies that, even if they are not the same culture, they at least had communication/trade with the people responsible for the nether fortresses.
I feel like the horse armors are more things that were brought to the city or made for the city. Despite the big blue sky above you, the Ancient City are normally very deep underground and beneath mountains. This is two extremes far from the plains and savanna biomes where you would normally see horses. Also, there is no signs of a collapsed manmade tunnel leading between the city and the surface. So, unless there is an unknown type of portal that was shut off before your arrival, the people that used the location would have had to come through the caves (which are not good places to ride horses).
I think the really interesting thing about interpreting Minecraft as a lived-in world with history, is that any fire you see burning on nether-sourced materials (soul sand, netherrack) very well could have been burning all the way from when it was still in use! Since nether stuff burns forever, the only way for that NOT to be true would be if someone put it out at some point. But I could totally see an "eternally burning" fire having some religious significance in a Minecraft society. I doubt that they worshipped the fire itself (like people very well might have if something like that really existed), since the materials you can do that with are relatively common. Once you have one block, you can have hundreds. But if they used it in some sort of ritual, then maybe it had some higher order of importance compared to, say, the candles? Of course, we're talking about a game where even torches last forever, so it's hard to know how seriously to take all of this. But I'm just saying. Also burning soul sand has interesting implications given the stuff you mentioned regarding souls near the end.
It's been really cool watching you and MC Oda go through all of this ancient city and seeing you guys using real life archaeology techniques, and the interpretation so far has also been very interesting! really looking forward to the next episode!
I love that you included the game mechanics in determining the meaning of things, especially the echo shards and the curse of binding pants. If I do any storytelling with my builds, I'm going to use the curse of binding and reduced durability to show someone died.
thank you for providing some professional insight into a fresh, reality-tinted hypothesis about the Ancient City. this is going to be an illuminating study to continue to check in on and watch evolve. i super look forward to it, i’ve always loved the Ancient Cities and developing lore about them :3
For the fourth blue building I thought it could be a city guard. Armor is pretty obvious. Books to take notes on who's coming, who's leaving and what do they bring into/take out of the city. Bottles of enchanting could be interpreted as general "power ups". The catalysts could be a way of contacting/calling the warden if "shit hit the fan". The shards on the other hand might be a way to show the warden you're on their side. Edit: Absolutely just a theory but I think it's interesting. The light blue bulidings might be spechial burial places for people (and maybe their families) who got killed by the warden. (Some kind of honorable death within their society?)
I think you make some good points. Unfortunately a lot of whats there is just too little to go off of, but i guess thats the point and half of the fun! :)
@daskalosBCE absolutely. I love just theorizing about stuff. I'll have to wait for and see your next videos to see if my theories comply with the other buildings' general ideas but I have a whole religion around the warden (so a religion about something that actually exists) in my mind with rituals to calm the warden or even make it see them as friendly. I'm excited to see where this journey takes us.
@SorieI how did you come to that line of thought? What indicates to you that sculk is a vessel for experience? Also if it is wouldn't it be more reasonable to assume experience would be extracted from sculk? What reason would there be to feed the sculk? I'm intrigued.
@ipex8772 sculk feeds off of the life force of whatever falls on it. There are two things in the game that outwardly express life forces, that is, soul sand and experience points. Both can be found in ancient cities. As for why the sculk drops experience, that's simple. It's alive.
While I absolutely respect the work you are putting in and have been watching all the ancient city series, I want to throw in a bit of context that I don't think you've acknowledged so far. I am also writing this as I watch and will add further comment as I listen. While they are decidedly *ancient* cities, they are also advanced cities, in a setting that has a demonstrated form of magic. This is decidedly outside your area of expertise (for reasons we may never know!) but could provide additional context to some of it. For the "regular blue" buildings, I largely agree, the first one strikes me as funerary and cremation, however. I know that does get thrown around as a common use in archaeology but it seems appropriate, given the bones, fire, coal. Alternatively the coal and bones, after viewing the light blue, could suggest wither skeletons. We "know" there is some history involving the wither in minecraft, but it isn't totally clear. I agree with your assumption on the first red building, for the second I would like to suggest it was used for enchanting or was an archive as you suggested. I have no idea what to make of the third, but it suggests to me that building layout was something that was easily produced. Another comment suggested a sort of ritual use to the diamond hoes. I would like to counter the idea, ancient cities are the major centers of sculk growth. You can find it in regions without cities, but all cities are found with it. I would suggest they are the same as having a lawn mower. A produce of necessity if sculk had some value, which I believe the swift sneak books and warden motifs would support. It grows pretty aggressively, so being able to clear it out or keep it contained would be very valuable, and having a durable tool for it ideal. For the light blue buildings on their own, I have no real thoughts except that it's strange to me they are elevated above the ground while having no visible entrance at that level. I have no training in archaeology to say if that would be meaningful to you or you would attribute that to collapse of the structure. I don't view the "warden " as the entrance. It seems more decorative and designed to look through and not enter, to me.
I like your thinking. I do feel like sculk, and the warden, got out of control at some point and thus it’s the quickly spreading thing it is today. I think when the original temples/cities were formed that the sculk took great effort and rituals to attain, and perhaps the relationship with the warden/s was also more amicable and full of reverence. The amount of things that could have evolved over the scales of time is sometimes overwhelming. More time has past between the first and last Egyptian pyramids than time has past between the last pyramid and now…. And those cultures buildings and artifacts are not nearly as deep as an ancient city.
I’m thinking that last dark blue building may be an enchanter’s residence. The enchanted leggings seem to me to be something that had been maybe recently enchanted and being, like a commission or something of the like.
I do wonder if the repetition of bones, coal, and music disks imply smaller scale religious rituals done by families inside of their own homes instead of at the primary temples, like how lots of people in real life have shrines in their houses. This could be either that people were actively burning animals in or near their homes, or the remnants of the sacrifices that were not burned away were taken home to be preserved in a smaller personal shrine instead of the communal ones. Also it is worth considering the idea that skulk-related items were not intentionally placed in chests but spread and grew into chests when the skulk spread further into the city. Very cool video though! I love the interpretation of the chest items instead of just focusing on architecture like a lot of people do when talking about minecraft structures. Excited for the restoration video!
Interesting analysis! couple of my own thoughts: A compass in minecraft points to the world spawn which would've changed if you copypasted it into a different world. Probably wouldn't matter much because practically it does the same thing; point to a steady location, but still something to perhaps keep in mind. The other thing l'm curious about which might be a bit meta is to what degree you're taking "implied intention" from the devs into account. For example a stairs block objectively has the use of helping you get to an elevated area, however in designing a ruin stairs could also be used to imply that a block is ruined/incomplete which someone unfamiliar with minecraft building culture might not take into account. Of course this is an obvious example but it also carries over into the placement of the items in the chests; l think their scattered placement is meant to imply that it's a messy chest (otherwise it would mean that only "player" entities would be using the ancient city) and sculk blocks etc inside of the chest are meant to imply that sculk has started to grow in the chest. I don't know if that's a useful insight at all just wanted to share and very curious to see what other conclusions you'll draw :)
Those are some good points. Generally speaking I'm trying to go for a realistic standpoint while also taking the fact that this is a game developed by people unfamiliar with archaeology (I mean, a brush as our tool?). So I am unsure how far ill go down the meta rabbit hole. Though, I did have a talk with Oda about stairs possibly being degraded whole blocks
The sculk growing in the chest is definitely an interesting interpretation! There would have to be comparison to the level of sculk growth in the area to say how much merit it holds
I would lean towards the light blue buildings being ritual rooms for those going to dangerous jobs. The first one with the hoes, coal, and Skulk suggests workers who collect the Skulk blocks; the second with the armor, compass, and Notch Apples suggests soldiers or explorers. The building could have been used for ceremonies of leaving/return, with a priest marking the workers as the leave or return to “the Warden’s Embrace”, symbolized by walking out from or into the representation of the Warden.
I want to ad something, so the blue fire means soulsand and soulfire, this isnt just normal lights and neither are the candles, i think the ancient city people kept their dead around a while (potentially it had something to do with the sculc given its connection to xp and death, this is though a little bit outside the scope of the archeological perspective) this means that the ”red” temples were where they let those souls go and so the offerings are maybe the deceaseds items that they were giving them to help in the afterlife. Because of the different items in both temples that could indicate the first one being in a richer part of the city and the other one in a poorer given the fewer items and one of them having a hoe indicating him being some kind of farmer / at least worker
The bones and lead in Red 1 as opposed to the hoe and the glowberries in Red 2 make me think that maybe Red 1 was used for animal sacrifice and Red 2 was used for agricultural offerings
Just to note, I and a few other people (iirc) believe before discovering the ancient city, Illagers did explore the area due to the evidence of dark oak blocks and chests, blocks that the Illagers use also.
It is possible that some of the sculk contents of the chests are not hand-placed in relation to the building's purpose, but instead wound up infested in there; the Echo Shards also stand out to me in this regard, especially with the prevalance of Amethyst Shards - those in particular could be the result of long-term exposure that we now cannot replicate, and would explain the lack of found recovery compasses. The abundance of bones (perhaps coal, too, if it's been long enough for that to partially fossilize somehow; Fossils near the surface of Deserts are also often found partially substituted with coal ore) could also not have been the case at the time in these structures, especially under the hypothesis that those who made the Dark Oak additions gathered everything up into chests.
Some interesting notes! I saw a comment suggesting that perhaps there was a lost technique for crafting Echo Shards. Interesting detail for my fellow geology nerds, but crystal shape is entirely determined by its molecular makeup, present elements and conditions etc. And while echo shards do not occur naturally anywhere in Minecraft they do happen to share an exact crystalline shape with Amethyst shards! As an added bonus to think about, I've also noticed that Amethyst and Echo Shards never seem to share much real-estate in a chest!
Now THIS is what I've been most excited to see from this series! A while back on another channel I had written my own take on an Archaeological perspective on the city, with the major caveat that I am not a trained professional, I'm just an enthusiast. It was actually really encouraging and cool to see an actual archaeologist add depth to the idea. I had done two things differently; - I had assumed homogeneity between different instances of the ancient cities. Each city has the same buildings in the same style, and the game is randomly generated. I thus assumed that the buildings themselves had useful information, but their layout (beyond the 4 quadrant layout which is present in all instances) did not, as their placement lacked intent on the part of the devs. -I had not taken into account the contents of chests, again, on the assumption that being randomly generated, there would be nothing to gain from the contents of individual chests, only from the loot tables themselves. The city's entire item pool has intent on the part of the devs, the individual chests do not. I guess in general; I couldn't forget that minecraft is randomly generated, y'know? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Red buildings had a piece of evidence in them that I focused in on and was surprised not to hear mentioned; the skull in the niche below the raised platform. This led me to assume that the structure had been a funerary temple of some kind, especially since it's sort-of like a mound, with a solid base and platforms on top. Blue buildings (and all the similar "chamber" structures) I had also assumed were residences or storage buildings. Light Blue being a mausoleum was unexpected, but definitely interesting. I was a little hesitant to declare anything a burial or funerary structure without a piece of definite human remains found inside, and so I had only clocked the red building on that. I hadn't actually commented on LB when I had done my little investigation, as I had initially been focused on 'correcting' or at least reinterpreting the structures, as the names of the structures in the files didn't seem to match. Red for instance is certainly not a "barracks", and the "sauna" (which I think this city lacks) is almost definitely a bath-house. It seems to be a large public building, with a smaller pool atop a platform with open space beneath (possibly for lighting fires to heat the bath), a larger swimming pool beneath, and smaller rooms off to one side, possibly for changing or use as an actual sauna. It screams bath-house to me. I think yours also lacks the building I tentatively identified as an insula. I am aware that insulae are specifically Roman public housing, I had assigned the name because of the larger upper floor that's often divided into sections with wall blocks and the open ground floor. It just felt like a small apartment, with space on the ground floor for merchants or craftspeople and an upper story for tenants. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the end though, I had kinda come to the conclusion that the city might not even be a city. We see very little housing in proportion to the ceremonial structures, we don't see palaces, workshops and the like- at least, with no way to investigate for post holes and pot sherds here, that is- It put me in the mind of places like Angkor Watt and other massive temple-cities. It may have absolutely had a permanent population of priests or religious figures, but I think the builders of this place didn't live here full-time. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm very excited to see where this goes from here, I may chime in again on the next video, who knows. Your knowledge is invaluable, I appreciate so much that you have elected to share it openly, and for fun on projects like these. I always learned best from people like you doing their thing, it's what gave me my passion for history in the first place, thanks so much for doing these!
Love seeing informational deep dives for minecraft! Just got back into the game with some friends and found your channel and loving it. Wanted to be an archeologist or paleontologist when i was younger, before going into nursing.
We know that amethyst can be used to make sculk react to certain frequencies (calibrated sculk sensor), so eco shards COULD just be very delicate worked amethyst shards, combined with sculk so they only react to certain frequencies.
You mentioned the chests, which seem to indicate someone came in later, which is also marked by the fact that wool is found in ancient cities. So could the bones and coal also be the remains of the people who once lived there AFTER some disaster struck them? I mean, coal and bones could also mean victims of a disaster who are being kept apart to study what happened, or they were put there as a tomb robber was cleaning the place out.
It's worth considering that most of the chest loot is meant to be temporary storage. The Ancient City, when you look at the architecture and the clues we get from the rest of MC, is clearly designed around maneuvering around a Warden. On top of that, there are no houses, or really any buildings meant for families; there's only barracks, implying that this city was largely military. With that, the hoes make more sense. Where there's a Warden, there's often Skulk, so being able to get rid of it would be helpful in an emergency. The bones could be from the remains of animals fed to the Skulk, since the ancients clearly saw some sort of value in the Warden to build several monuments to it. The shattered disc definitely seems like the remnants of a wine-bottle-esque ceremony, christening the completion of a new compound meant to do something with the Warden.
The non-silktouch hoes could be for gathering xp. The books and enchanted books lean towards enchanting with XP and the sacrifice of mobs often grows the sculk which can then be harvested later.
Interesting video, here are some of my thoughts as far as actual lore goes: Skulk is artificial, names like Skulk Sensor are very artificial names, especially considering that it can be calibrated. They’re also very compatible with both Redstone and amethyst, proving once more to their artificiality further more the ancient city portal appears to be made from skunk and skunk bones, we also find things such as hose in the chests evident that whoever built, these knew what they were doing. Also the Ancient City has symbols of the Well of Fate. There’s also evidence of Enderling’s being present, such as with the high chests in some of the structures.
Theres a lot of conclusions that you are making that are not based on solid evidence. Just to be clear, I am approaching this from a realistic point of view, one that is based on my experience as an archaeologist. Nothing, and i mean NOTHING should be taken from minecraft legends as true canon. Mojang has said that legends is just that... legend. As for Dungeons, nothing from dungeons should be seen as having any influence on this game. Yes Mojang has stated it is canon, but we dont know where, or WHEN dungeons takes place. For all we know it is billions of years in the future.
31:02 This might have been some sort of reservoir (maybe from sculk) or they tried to grow sculk in a controlled environment. The thick walls, high chest and small entrance through the Warden just don’t make sense for ceremonial purposes. The Warden might just be decorative and filled with an other material that deserved or was stolen. 34:55 or some sort of storage or safe or maybe it was we repurchased for one of those.
this actually rules both learning the thought process and methods behind archaeology as well as seeing other people in the comments contribute their own theories and ideas to add onto it im gonna go binge the whole series :-D
I was looking at the video length and was asking: "how can you cover all the structures in this time??" But there's a part 2, can't wait for it! This was a very nice going through of what the ancient cities could be, reminds me of when I speculate about things as a child, only this time it's an official job
Gonna throw in my thesis into the ring: I think there are three destinct eras to keep track of, the city *before* the warden, the city *after* the warden and its collapse and lastly the abandoned city as we find it. I have a theory that the red ritual sites are not dedicated to the warden but rather too the large central portal structure. In fact, I dont belive that they were of strictly ritual purpose either but rather research locations where they attempted to activate miniature versions of the large portal through various means. If you wish to read into it further, following common understanding of time passing being depicted as going from left to right; the left chest represents the materials they experimented with and the right chest show the results or tools used to deal with the results (hoe to gather skulk etc) Then at some point after they manage to activate the large portal, the warden comes through and wreaks havoc on the city. This is when things like the swift sneak books start to appear as the citizens attempt to find survival meathods and ways to deal with the warden; sneaking being an effective meathod to stay hidden from sensors. This is (to my mind) supported by the fact that these objects start to appear in the blue houses instead of the larger buildings as larger society has broken down and small groups of people have to survive through their local means as the long and open stone streets would make sound travel far and alert the warden. (Also also quick sidenote on the blue houses. There is a block in the right corner of all of them that clearly marks where the door would be. Perhaps the face on it acts like a "welcome rug" or as a guardian against tresspassers. I also think its important to separate the generic dungeon loot table in the findings as they are there primarily for gameplay purposes (much like how everything is found typical wood chests). I think it would be more telling if you look at the unique loot tables for the city specifically to see what is supposed to actually originate from there. Music discs, horse armour and some other loot can be found in all naturally spawned chests so being able to find Diamond horse armour in a desert temple and the ancient city should not necessarily be seen as a link between them for example.
The red buildings you covered first, i see the half story down as a sort of mini catacombs, i havent gotten to the blue parts in the video so idk if its was covered, but the skulls and lifted platforms, enough to lay a body on, is interesting to me. I feel like it could be a place to place the dead and give offerings, but i also think the whole city was a kind of graveyard or worship place
15:37 the fragments could potentially not be from the same original disc, If you listen to the disc it sounds odd, completely unlike every other disc with a weird mash up of sounds. It’d be pretty weird to make one specific disc that sounds like a random mash of music and break it into fragments (at least it would in my mind, it could maybe have been made purposely fragmented sounding to reference how they shatter it, though that seems unlikely)
I would agree with you on it not being the same disc. Unfortunately the way the game is coded you make one disc from those fragments. It would be nice if those fragments were coded in a different way. Id be interested to see if re-editing the parts of it could make it make sense
23:50 I think the person in this residence, while record keeper is a good guess, could also be some kind of magic focused/ enchanter person! In Minecraft, you can enchant both tools directly OR you can enchant an empty book, which is used to upgrade/ layer enchantments. With two swift sneak books, it’s possible this person was responsible for supplying the swift sneak enchantments as the people tried to live alongside the warden, with the bones being the remains of animal sacrifices used to give the enchanter the XP required!
I just found this channel today, but based on your content, I highly recommend looking into the "Dragon Quest Builders" games. The entire premise is about rebuilding the a world after an apocalypse and there are various ruins scattered all around. It's right up your alley.
Oh I’m loving this. 34:06 This is gonna be a big stretch, but I almost wonder if the placement of Cursed items isn’t so much reflective of the potential occupant’s actual possessions, but is rather an added deterrent against graverobbing? Stretching even further at the risk of doing the intellectual equivalent of the splits, if we go along with the idea that the wooden chests are later additions but that they hold the room’s original contents, could constructing newer containers maybe have been a way for these later builders to “contain” these curses?
Very well made video! It's really interesting to listen to you exploring the structure! About wooden chests: There are scrapped material from the initial plans for the update with stone tombs with treasure! So wooden chests are more of a game design difficulties. So you need to keep in mind that most things can just be oversimplification because of time/complexity for development.
When it comes to seeing all the horse armor and potential horse bones in the various chests, alongside the fact that there are possible mausoleums in the area, makes me wonder that, rather than sacrifices, the horses were dead pets and such that were entombed in this area as well, possible cremated, this being less of an area of worship (although some sort of ancestor worship is possible) and more of a massive burial ground and the assorted related facilities.
My personal theory is the chests are kind of like caskets which where being prepared for a funeral pyre. It would explain why the chests in the first part match the locations of the fires in the smaller monument, and why each chest seems to be filled with something that can burn like coal, torches, and candles (generally)
This is a super cool video! I loved seeing your perspective and think it's super neat, from someone who has absolutely no experience in the field. That being said, I do know a lot about minecraft, and a bit about history - and I'd like to argue that the light blue structure with the large warden ribcage depiction and the chest with diamond hoes was not a place primarily of ceremony, but of resource collection. Like, mining, and quarrying. one of the main reasons a survival player brings a good hoe into the deep dark, and by extension, ancient cities, is to quickly find diamonds. It's a legitimate method to insta-mine loads and loads of skulk off of the deepslate, which uncovers many diamond ore deposits. This is because, in minecraft, diamonds generate much more often when not exposed to air. I think the whole structure was a resource hub for miners, or maybe even a sanctioned mining guild. They would pay their respects to the fearsome beast of the deep, the warden, to bless their expedition into the mines or the fields of skulk. The bones represent a warning to other miners about miners who were disorderly, or misconducted their prayers or mining operations. Just a theory! (READ REPLY)
Continuing actually, this makes a lot of sense with the other two light blue buildings - these are places to stock up for a great harvest of materials; which can totally be seen as a sacred act. It's fair to assume that the residents of these cities lived their entire lives underground, so they would have had to gone to the nether to gather wood and food, which could be why they have that giant portal in the middle - they would have had to live entirely off the land to mine the resources needed for their settlements. the coal could be literal coal; they needed it for warmth, the armor could be from protection from mobs, the books for recordkeeping of the resources they've collected.
So random but I’m so happy you mentioned that all wood that was potentially used would be gone by now, it reminded me immediately of when I went to visit a handful of native ruins in Arizona and the Park Rangers pointed that out while we were walking around, for the most part wood is the first thing to disintegrate. I know you’re an Archeologist so everything in here is based on analyzing real world structures but that part in particular was cool to me :) I also agree with you that it was a ceremonial structure. For the most part, our current idea of the lore is that Ancient Cities are where the ancient builders summoned The Warden to defeat a Wither that was destroying the world by collecting Soul Energy. Soul energy is found in the lanterns, campfires, the souls that release when running on soul sand (which is required to create a Wither), the blue energy from The Warden, etc. ✌🏻 so I think you’re completely right
The idea of the ancient cities’ residents worshipping the warden reminds me of how with game theory their theory is that the builders of the ancient cities were fleeing the wither, or at least they were trying to make sure it’d never find them, hence why the ancient cities are so far underground, and seems to not have been buried naturally, anyways their idea is that the wither did find them, but then the warden showed up and killed the wither, as recorded on the broken music disc, so using that idea, it would make sense they’d worship the warden because it killed the thing that was hunting them down so relentlessly they felt they needed to dig extremely far underground just to escape it
One thing I always do when I find ruins in games is try and figure out what the ruin was for. Sometimes, the ruins are just set pieces and aren't actually made to be analyzed, and thats fair enough, but when you are able to extrapolate information from them, ooo I get so giddy! I'm not an archaeologist (i'm studying to become a etnologist, but, lets see where that goes) so my analyses of ruins aren't as proper, but it feels nice to know i'm not alone in over-thinking (or perhaps just the right amount of thinking for this game . minecraft loves hiding context clues to the world in structures) analysing video-game ruins :D
25:50 I think it may be a maintenance worker. Supposing sculk was a sort of biological defensive system for the whole ancient city, a maintenance worker of this system would need the sculk catalysts to use sculk in the first place, xp to feed the sculk, and armor to operate such a dangerous system. The books are certainly useful tools like manuals or records for someone tasked with maintaining such a complicated thing. The disc may be linked to the echo shards that are themselves linked to sculk, so it may also be a scientist that lived there.
For that large area you interpreted as a mausoleum near the end of the video, I agree but think it's too open for long term storage. I believe it's a morgue. Have you ever seen The Walking Dead? In the very first episode after awakening from a coma, the protagonist leaves the hospital and finds a great number of corpses covered in sheets arranged in the courtyard of the hospital, presumably by the employees in order to store the vast number of corpses which were generated during the apocalypse. Since the ancient city is so dangerous, I think that building is similar, a kind of large morgue in which the dead are arranged on the wide floor, possibly for family to claim them. The chest would be for the items of the unclaimed dead.
maybe the light blue ceremonial structures, considering where the shelves in the walls are, are just another part of a ritual - for example, they cement the dead into the walls (like in a catacomb, as you mention) and all that extra space could either be for some celebration (of the dead, considering that the dead seem to be quite important to have so many structures dedicated to them) or perhaps for the addition of more walls to place more shelves in. that little pillar in the middle of the room might be the start of a new wall, or where they planned for new walls to go. it also makes sense to me, judging from the height of the warden chest depiction, that the building might've been intended to have stories gradually added as it fills up if is indeed being used in this way. it'd make sense structurally too, since you have all these extra walls to support the weight of the added stories, and plenty of space where a wall might not fit if the centre IS being filled in that could be used for stairs or a ladder. obviously just going off on a limb and making guesses, but it's an interesting thing to think about.
i think i've found my favorite thing about this game: scientists using their expertise to analyze the game. couple weeks ago it was a geologist talking about tuff and iron, now this
It’s very interesting thinking about how this was maybe a religious (ritualistic) complex. It makes you think, maybe they created or used some sort of magic to create the warden to protect themselves. But what are they protecting them selves from, why did they have to hide underground? They might’ve used the ritual buildings to burn animals as a sacrifice to the warden because animals are very noisy and they had no use for them. But really makes me curious why they would sacrifice their lives and having to stay quiet on purpose. And where did they go? Did something go horribly wrong that caused them to all die (the large amount of skulk) or maybe have to leave this world? (The giant portal like thing in the middle) it kinda makes me think of the Dwemer from Skyrim, they were mysterious and had giant complexes underground with magic and tech way ahead of their time. But then they all disappeared from this world. Very interesting! I’m excited to learn more about archaeology and eventually maybe other structures.
Something to keep in mind (as I see it come up time and time again) Being underground does not equal hiding. Also, we cannot assume the inhabitants died off, they could have simply left after the skulk became too unmanageable.
@@daskalosBCE yeah, lots of mysteries. I’ve always assumed they were hiding based off of Minecraft lore but it’s very interesting to think about all of the possibilities. I love your videos and your way of understanding and explaining things! Keep up the great work!
@@daskalosBCE but would they have left all those items in the chests? I could imagine maybe removing offerings in religious places would be taboo, but if blue was residences, you'd expect them to grab things like armour if they weren't rushing out (and I doubt unmaganble sculk would be a "we need to go no time to grab stuff" situation.)
perhaps what is left in the chests are offerings to close out the structures, or perhaps they planned on coming back and wanted to leave themselves some supplies.
For the second location being more 'sparce' but having more specific items in the chest, I thought about it and the first location could be for the dedication and sacrifices to the Warden, while the second location is dedicated to the Warden's younger brother, who is the the one you pray and sacrifice to for the harvest, not just with the hoe, but with the berries, and the lead. I like this video, way to make me think out some random stuff ;)
If we consider that this society is operating in a world that uses the rules of Minecraft then the person with the house that had the catalysts and exp bottles could have had a hypothetical "exp farmer" job or been an enchanter. A property of catalysts is that they retain the exp of mobs that are killed near it. The person could have worn armour and fought monsters near the catalysts in order to store exp and then use it later to enchant books.
23:40 I prefer the interpretation that this was an enchanter. The empty books were for enchanting. Possibly, the enchanter made the first version, then managed to make a second, and was trying to make a third. The music disk relates to ritual (and potentially sacrifice), and the bones are from a creature(s) the enchanter killed for experience in order to enchant. 26:30 For this one, I liked that scientist idea. Specifically, the idea that they're doing very dangerous research involving sculk (danger from the warden). Catalysts and books for research, armour for protection in the worst case, and possibly bottles of experience because sculk not only drops experience when broken, but also spawns from it (when from an animal). There could be a darker assumption that the bottles are to be splashed on a person to be killed to observe, or possibly in a duel situation (hence armour), but the lack of any weapon or tool doesn't land me convinced. It's possible that the echo shards (in some way the player cannot replicate) interact with the bottles of experience, spawning sculk near a catalyst, in the same way mob death does.
Do keep note that EXP according to the lore might be the "soul" of other creatures, so the exp bottles might perhaps be soul offerings to the skulk, since the skulk gains sustenance from souls, or perhaps urns containing loved ones or the deceased.
Minecraft is never going to be the same after this, isn't it? ;) ** puts back diamond sword in the grave he robbed and starts thesis on the architectural style differences between desert and underwater temples **
4:12 hmmmm, actually, Cottonwood Falls, Kansas has a population of 851, not 850, so you are wrong and this video is totally incorrect because it contains false information.
I'd like to offer something on the light blue. I saw some tables of sorts too, so perhaps not just some sort of burial grounds, but also a funeral home of sorts? Also nice catch on the last light blue being some sort of military funeral. I'd not have caught that if But hadn't pointed out the enchantments.
8:50 I don't think that's the case, within the context of other structures we can see that the "locals" tend to store items not in full stacks even when they're purely practical, like storing food in a house. While it can't be taken as proof that this was the case a long time ago, it's a pattern shared by all storages used by groups that precede player's presence.
23:52, I think it might be more like a shaman. The bones and disc denote similarities between them and the priests, so I feel as if they occupy somewhat similar roles. The presence of enchantment books suggest that the resident might have used enchanted books themselves, or given them to others. This mirrors the practice of shamans casting spells on their tribe's warriors to grant them extra abilities, or how some priest 'blessed' swords or other equipment to grant Fortune to the weilder or to help them Smite unholy beings. Finally, a shaman might have also kept records or have written down prophecies, explaining the books.
You're a certified interpretive guide but are you a certified interpretive dancer? That's my requirement to prove you're qualified to do this 2 notes: The archivist house could also potentially be a shared residential area,as could the fourth one. This could explain the chest having objects relating to multiple professions. Also,Wither Skeletons (living charred remains) drop bones and coal so the coal could definitely be from cremation, even though we also find it alongside bones
There's no real basis for this... But I wonder if the Curse of Binding could potentially have some kind of cultural significance. Like, the first possibility that comes to mind is as a sort of wedding ring type of thing, a symbolic "binding" between two people through marriage (though probably not given the mausoleum it was found it). Alternatively (and more likely) it could be a good luck charm, given the fact that it was undamaged, to I dunno bind the person's body to their grave so it will symbolically never be removed from its place of rest or something like that. Just throwing out ideas, probably wayyy too speculative to really be considered though.
In regards to the fourth blue building (the ones you deemed to be residences), I think there are two things worth considering. First, it's possible more than one person lived there. Given they're fairly small structures, it probably wasn't a big family or something, but its possible that the reason the objects could have so many meanings is they were the shared belongings of two people, such as a couple, who each worked different jobs. Obviously its hard to say anything definitively since we only have items, but its at least worth thinking about imo. Second, I think its good to consider what jobs might overlap or be worthing learning skills from outside the main focus. Maybe the occupant of residence four was an enchanter, or maybe they learned enchanting to supplement their work as an explorer/fighter. Or maybe if the occupant was an enchanter, part of their duties was gathering experience; not only through bottles o' enchanting, but through killing mobs. (This would be evidenced by owning armor, as well as skulk catalysts, as I think the people of the ancient city likely understood how the catalysts and mob exp interact.) I really enjoyed this video! Its so fun to see Minecraft analyzed through this lens and to hear a real archeologist construct a theory around what the fictional civilization could've been like. I'm definitely going to check out your other stuff and share with my friends. Thanks so much for making this!
I think the building with the skulk catalyst and the enchanted leggings could have been either an explorer or a warrior. The leggings for protection, the shards for making a recovery compass, and the books+enchantment bottles for enchanting or fixing gear. Definitely could have been a warrior since the catalysts could have been trophies or momentos from slain wardens. Also, what if all of the coal found in the chests are from killing wither skeletons? Disc 5 does suggest a connection between the wither and the ancient city if that really is the wither’s death cry at the end of the disc.
At the time 7:45 when you're talking about that statue, in the Codes for the Ancient city It's actually called portal statue and it resembles the giant centerpiece of the ancient city
Just an FYI, this interpretation is NOT 100 percent set in stone yet. Even now I'm looking at things and saying to myself "well now hold on", but the general themes and ideas of this interpretation aren't changing.
A minor comment, but if the theorized warrior burial has no remains, then it might be a bodyless burial/remembrance to remember them. Implying the body was lost to something/somewhere it could not be recovered. Which would be a useful datapoint on the culture that made these structures.
One of the things I was thinking about the bones and coal representing remains is that there's one mob that drops them: The wither skeleton. Idk if it has any connections since we see skeleton heads there but no wither skeleton ones and there's no sign of a Nether portal anywhere (I don't think it is even possible for a ruined portal to be generated in or near these as well). It also made me think of the existence of a theoretical wither skeleton horse.
Now that I'm writing this I was thinking about the "game theory" history of Minecraft and now I'm thinking as well they could have been experimenting about turning horse/people/skeletons into wither skeletons.
@@lintrichards6007 that would explain why the armor has no damage.
A number of these structures are named in the game files I know that's not the point of the exercise but I think it would be interesting to look over the discrepancies in what the structures are called and what the evidence shows
One cool possibility is that the tools were sacred objects used to harvest the offeringd
A couple thoughts:
All the damaged hoes are diamond specifically, not the more practical iron, implies further ritual formality to the skulk gathering.
Large ritual structures like temples often serve practical purposes to the community at large, Sumerian temples stored trade goods, the Hebrew temple had massive water cisterns, modern churches host various events/groups, etc. Some of the items found in a structure might not have to do with the primary purpose.
Good points on all of that!
It may have also been ease of gathering. Iron doesn't spawn basically at all at the bottom of the world, where the city spawns, while diamonds spawn quite often.
This can also be survivor bias. For all we know, wooden hoes may have been a thousand times more prevalent than the diamond, but have not survived. The fact that only the most durable tool remains should cause any interpretation of that tool's importance to be given a lower degree of confidence.
that practical purpose thing could explain the potion in the ritual area, which seems like the odd-item-out (to me, at least). Ritual area, but also essentially a hospital?
@@zakronthesheep Or a first-aid kid analog in a non-hospital area.
I never thought of the ancient city being more of a worship complex instead of a residential area but it makes sense
with so many depictions of the warden, it starts to make more sense in the big picture type of way
@daskalosBCE yeah I mean when the center of the city is a giant warden head it's kinda obvious
why is it called a city then?
thats what the devs call it. plenty of settlements in history were called cities that we wouldnt consider cities nowadays
@daskalosBCE yeah
28:47 if these are indeed mausoleums, its compelling to imagine the sculk sensors as a sort of symbolic protection against grave robbers, especially coming from a culture that seems to venerate if not outright worship the warden. "don't disturb these remains or you'll anger the warden" type of thing
The skulk also absorbs experience from mobs as they die nearby, and the warden has souls in his chest. Perhaps the warden was named such due to his job; To be a warden of the souls of the dead.
@@justsomejerseydevilwithint4606oh I like that!
@@justsomejerseydevilwithint4606 To me, that makes it all the more an uncontrollable monster than a "jailer of the damned."
It's not doing a "job" as much as it's merely hibernating for who knows how long since it first arose and murdered all who called that city their home! The Warden *_is feared..._* NOT RESPECTED.
@@trumediamix1 maybe respect out of fear
@@stonnacc Being feared isn't the same as being respected. They're opposites, in fact.
It's one thing if the Overworld's mobs respected the Warden like a kind of caretaker figure (someone who sees the dead to the afterlife) - but I think that's clearly not the case.
Mobs are seemingly indifferent towards the Warden. They don't panic at his presence, immediately turn hostile, or run away if he gets close. To them, he's just "another guy."
*_"WHY AREN'T YOU SCARED?!?"_*
"Who the f%$& are you and why should we care..?"
[Kills a Skeleton]
*_"GET THAT SON OF A GUN!"_*
I think it is important to keep in mind the population of the ancient city were able to craft reinforced deepslate which is unattainable is survival. So some things found in chests may serve a purpose that is unrepeatable by the player.
I agree!
How were you able to make the words *_"reinforced deepslate"_* blue and basically searchable??
@@gerardjagroo no cule
@@gerardjagroo I'm pretty sure it is automatic
That's assuming the reinforced deepslate was crafted. Just as portals in the Overworld can be created at the moment a Nether portal is entered, it could be that beings from an unknown dimension attempted to cross into the Overworld, causing the formation of a substance foreign to the world we know. The ancient city might have been built up around the empty portal frame much later. If the city's builders could have crafted that much reinforced deepslate, it's reasonable to expect the same block to appear elsewhere in the city, or stored in hidden chests for future use.
20:08 the saddle and horse armor tie into a common theme in almost ALL ruins in Minecraft, which is that, no matter the location, no matter how far-flung or how unreasonable and immensely difficult it would be to bring a horse there, there always seems to be saddles and horse armor, even in the end cities or here, at the deepest depths of the shadowy caves, even in the charred stone fortresses in the nether, there's horse armor and saddles. As such, I think it might be plausible to dismiss horse-related items.
What if this was a society of ancient horses? Or some kind of centaur + reverse centaur civilisation that has armour for both halves?
@satsujin-shathewitchkingof6185 I think they just really like horses; The nether portal is the perfect size for a horse and rider, the nether fortresses, down where one block is the distance of eight, have long, highway-like structures and a higher concentration of horse armor and saddles than usual, and it's even confirmed in Minecraft Dungeons with player structures and towns bearing a rearing horse statue, you should DEFINITELY start asking questions about item descriptions, loot locations, and statuary in that game if you haven't, there's tons of good lore there.
@justsomejerseydevilwithint4606 Yeah,maybe they're like that guy Abraham Lincon gave a presidential pardon to for beastiality with his horse
Horse armor is expressly meant to be dungeon loot. It's one of the video game-y aspects of Minecraft
bold of you to assume these ancient people weren't horse girls
The worship towards the warden makes a lot of sense when listening to the reconstructed version of the disk shards. The disk seems to include a record of events (along with some music since it’s reconstructed from shards of possibly different disks).
In a part of the disk you can hear distant explosions, the warden being summoned, then a (reversed?) wither death sound. Inferring that the warden may have killed a wither that was hunting the people (hence distant explosions), hence worshipping the warden and constructing a city full of shrines and wool to walk on
marching sound was my favorite part of the disc but i don't know what that would be
@@saferhere I always assumed the disc was the story of an army entering the city after it became abandoned and then being unprepared for the warden, but if we take the idea that the warden and a wither fought as true, the army has two possible identities;
1) the founders of the ancient city; they happened across the area, placed blocks like dirt (audible on the disc), accidentally summoned the warden while escaping the wither, and that birthed the worship of the warden by the army. it would also explain why so much seems to be geared towards worship and giving offerings; they don't want the warden to return and attack the rest of them.
2) they're who summoned the wither and the disc could be an incomplete record of how the ancient city fell. the army comes without knowing that the warden exists (or believing it doesn't?), they either lure or summon a wither, and the warden is summoned either by its worshippers in the city or by the noises the army has caused. most mobs have no concept of loyalty and so the warden kills almost everyone. only one person needs to have survived to put the fragments of these discs away once the warden returned to its slumber, and a resident would both understand the need for silence and would want a record of the city saved.
the wither death sound isn't reversed, just slowed down iirc.
@CrowMaiden oh oh yeah yeah wait imagine a parade with warden banners with people carrying a giant ark-style warden head
@@CrowMaiden Or perhaps it's a historical record of a time the city was sieged by an outside army with the help of a wither, and how the warden 'helped' defend it
Fun Fact: When the update with the Ancient City was still being worked on, Mojang had made concept art for stone chests and stone vases, but it was scrapped.
As to if they'll ever make a reappearance, I hope at least the vases do.
nice! I would have rather preferred the stone versions as the wooden versions dont jive with the rest of the structure
@@daskalosBCE100% agree plus would have been an awesome, welcome edition
@daskalosBCE
Would you take that into consideration going forward?
Yes, it is cut content.
But also gives good insights on the devs intentions.
Are developer intentions something that personally is relevant to you and this project?
Also. Would you be taking note of the actual audio of the fractured disk?
thats a tough call. I think I will ignore their intentions just to stay true to what im trying to do here
Trails dungeons have the pots now wonder if they’d update the city to have some here and there
The sheer quantity of discs in the structure implies a culture with music, and the size of these sturctures when compared to other groups, and the fact they meddeld in redstone, music disc creation(an item not very common, and uncraftable by us, showing it may be very expensive to craft, and also the fact they where enchanters, an uncommon trait by many, may have made them very wealthy. And the hoes without silktouch may have been used to gain xp, for enchanting, to further prove the case that they are enchanters, and ontop of that, may have been used to stop the sculk from speading into buildings, likely which is why they are elevated, to slow its spread.
Considering the association of sculk and sound, music may have a great amount of significance in their culture. The surviving music discs might be their most significant songs, having multiple copies.
I wonder if they play the broken music discs before breaking them.
26:20 I think the bottles of enchanting suggest explorer actually. Notice that the armour has mending on it, meaning it can be repaired with experience orbs. The fact that the armour is a very practical sort (it's just iron as opposed to something flashy like diamond), plus the fact that it's been designed to be repairable, and the means to repair it also exist in that chest. This leads me to believe this was the belongings of an explorer. Possibly the type to go out scouting and take field notes since we see an abundance of books too.
Alternatively a trader and the books are meant to be ledgers of trades, goods, coinage, etc etc.
I think the two big indications I see in that chest is that a) this is a person who did a practical job and b) that job required note taking of some kind.
Possibly an explorer, possibly a trader, possibly some other job that didn't require them to leave the city, who knows.
Here's some more information to tweak your take:
Skulk Catalyst absorbs exp when things die on or near it, causing nearby blocks to turn into Skulk. That Skulk can then be mined to collect the exp orbs. Assuming this culture could craft things we the Player cannot (a fair assumption given the Reinforced Deepslate), it's possible that this explorer/scientist was studying the Skulk Catalyst, the way it interacts with exp, and potentially worked out a way to extract the exp to create the Bottles o' Enchanting (or, they're continuing the work of someone else who previously made the discovery, either way works).
Either way you look at it, using Catalysts to gain exp requires monsters, so armor would be a sensible thing to wear, especially if you can Mend it.
@@SuperiorPosterior adding on to your point, perhaps the armour itself was created by this scientist as a result of their experience-related research. Perhaps, they discovered how to enchant armour with Mending, and used the bottled experience to test it.
I'm beginning to think that the whole Ancient City may in fact be a necropolis, and the Warden statue is an offering to the God of Death to bestow Wardens upon them as guardians of the dead. The whole vibe of the Warden screams cthonic eldtritch God.
Bingo... O_O"
I really hate to say it, but that just may be the best explanation I never thought of...
It also contains farming equipment (the hoes) which are commonly associated with death, they also aid in removing skulk but that seems odd for a culture so reverent of it
It also vibes with what Skulk actually does.
Killing things near Skulk spreads it onto nearby blocks. and breaking Skulk drops XP, so they explicitly feed off of the XP that drops upon death.
@@kazmark_gl8652 As of now, I've been taking it all into thought for inspiration for a WIP I'm excited about, so far. :D
I'm plotting out a BE Behaviour Pack (basically a free-to-enjoy BE mod project) that's themed on an urban fantasy - Bloodstone. (I basically wanna use Minecraft as a stepping stone, in a sense, much like DOTA did with Warcraft.)
I'm starting off with planned changes to the Deep Dark to make it feel more fun to explore and venture through! ❤️
I like the idea of the thing as a mausoleum of sorts!
26:02 This is a pretty big leap, but I believe an hypothetical crafting recipe for Echo Shards would involve Amethyst Shards and Sculk Blocks. (Maybe a knowledge lost to time?)
Amethyst Shards are the items most ressembling to Echo shards, and they also happen to be found in this city.
The recipe for the Calibrated Sculk Sensor also involves Amethysts and Sculk, so they _can_ be combined in some way.
The conversion of amethyst to echo would explain why they are sometimes in the same chest
Perhaps an Echo shard is what happens when the Skulk "eats" amethyst.
8:42 i know this is not evidence found at the site but there is a pottery sherd of the warden that can be found in underwater ruins showing that this culture was wide spread enough for other societies to have art of the warden
Thats an interesting point! gives better context to the horse saddle and armor (and aqua affinity)
@daskalosBCE exactly
I won't necessarily say that says much about the ancient city people as wardens can be encountered outside of a city and not all deep dark biomes has a city either
@nicklas2524 fair point
Hot or cold ruins?
The Warden imagery suggests that the worshipping is directed to it or to Sculk in general. This would support the theory of animal sacrifices, since the Sculk's growth speeds up when something dies near it. This could also explain the amount of music discs in the chests - Sculk is closely tied with vibrations and sounds, and as a result playing music may play part in the rituals, for example different music is reserved for different kinds of ceremonies.
The bones could be soms sort of ritual amulets or jewelry, because natural formations of Sculk include exposed bone - Sculk catalyst, shrieker, Warden. So, worshippers might wear bones to show their devotion.
Interesting thing that you didn't mention is that the big ceremonial spaces with two altars and warden head in the center always have a skull placed at the lower level. I think it's possible that these are skulls of some important figures, maybe even "saints", because they are placed in public ritual areas where everybody can visit them.
Another thing is that fire near the top altar is soul fire. Which either shows that the residents had access to the Nether, or that soul sand and soil can be produced with the usage of Sculk(since Sculk is able to absorb souls through catalysts, and utilise souls in shriekers and in Warden's chest)
Oh wow, nice job! I didn’t remember cuz I never fully looked into ancient cities
I think it is safe to assume that the civilization that built the ancient cities had access to the Neather. they clearly could make diamond tools, but even then, their cities are deep enough that casting a portal is also completely possible. they could even have built some of the ruined portals found in the world or known about whoever did.
its also possible that the reinforced deepslate structure in the center is a kind of Neather Portal.
26:00 Something that wandered into my mind. When you started talking about Echo Shards, I was thinking whatever this civilization my have been, knew how to craft the echo shards. However since there's no crafting recipe, it's something of a lost tech, something in the same vein as Greek Fire.
I thought of that too, and i think you may be right.
It's the exact same when it comes to reenforced deepslate and end portal frames
I doubt echo shards are a crafted material... They feel like a natural formation akin to Amethyst shards. It probably comes from the Sculk somehow, but whatever method of obtaining it is lost.
What is interesting though is that despite Echo Shards and Compasses appearing in the chests, you can't find Recovery Compasses in the loot pool... Implying that they might have known _how_ to make one, but couldn't for some reason (perhaps it was forbidden, or perhaps they simply didn't have a use for it because they don't seem to be able to respawn like the player can).
I'd like to add that the sculk seems to have quite a bit of liquid in it occasionally if not always. The sounds are squishy and the sculk catalyst releases bubbles once a being dies nearby, suggesting that the liquid is souls in some way.
This ancient civilization might have managed to extract this liquid during a sacrifice or death ceremony and use it for various purposes - such as marinating amethyst in it to make echo shards. Maybe, _maybe_ even making bottles o' enchanting and ominous bottles from it, judging by the color, effect activation and sculk breaking noises (both whispering whooshes) soulfire connection and skull-shaped particle effects (incredibly strong link, i know). This would explain where the illagers get their bottles and vex magic if those dark oak loving raiders are indeed pillagers.
yeah, a pretty baseless theory but if any evidence is presented in the future, it might hint towards it
I love how you can interpret completely randomised loot into actual things that actually make sense
With the bottles of enchanting, and the way sculk grows by consuming experience, I lean toward researcher with that one residence. Living around the sculk seems to have been part of their livelihood and it makes sense to devote time to trying to understand it, and how to avoid awakening the warden.
Im surprised we didn't talk about the human skulls in the red buildings, both had one. Those didn't just fall there, someone had to have put them there.
For the light blue buildings, maybe these were tombs/memorials for people killed by the Warden specifically? Maybe the hypothetical warrior tried to fight it and lost, and there are no bones either because their body was consumed by the sculk or it just wasn't safe to retrieve them
I also think it's very interesting that a people whose lives would seemingly require them to remain very quiet would have so many music discs. Almost every building has had at least one.
Human skulls or Skeleton skulls?
It kind of makes me want to test this in survival, but I suspect that the warden may be drawn to music in a similar way to allays- (which are both associated with blue?) and if the warden is already there, then finding a way to controll it and discouraging it from following YOU is pretty important.
Perhaps the buildings with surviving records simply weren't attacked, or the ones with shattered disks only managed to distract the warden for so long before being blasted apart.
To add onto this. Other comments mentioned that pillagers were a later culture that plundered the city at some point. What if pillagers stole or took allays FROM the ancient city, and only their descendants survived because the original populations no longer had any caretakers?
After all, music and amethyst shards are required for "breeding" allays, and this is the only place in the game both of those things are found in chests together, afaik
@@A11V1R15 MAAAAAYBE (I'm leaning far outside the window here) the skeletons once used to be humans, given that humans usually contain at least one skeleton. Therefor, it can be both a human and a skeleton skull.
My hypothesis for the disc fragments falls under the sacrifice or offering to the Warden. Like a "hey, I know you're sensitive to sound, so here is my favorite sound disc broken for you."
Thats an interesting idea, and one I hadn't thought of.
This may be a little strech but what if those disc where specifically created for that person or ritual and broken in the same ritual as a form of workshipping?. I mean if taking the theory of the mausoleum, maybe those discs would have specific songs for each person and when they died the discs where broken as a symbolism of that person dying. I say it again, this seems a strech but is what I thought as I saw the video.
I think it's worth considering that more than one person could live in each residence, so there could be pertenences of a few people in a single chest
I actually cover that during the restoring section! You are thinking ahead! :)
Dude your comment on how the Warden has souls in its chest and that a mausoleum would have that be emblazoned in its architecture is genuinely a really sick observation
36:40 Weird that you'd find a *Channeling* enchantment in an ancient city. That's for tridents, which are only ever found carried by Drowned.
my thoughts exactly
@@daskalosBCE "that could suggest the existence of ancient aliens who gave knowledge to the ancient builder or maybe the ancients builders are aliens...
i won't said that it's alien, but it's alien. ancient astronaut theorists said yes"
- History channel
This lines up with Warden pottery sherds found in ocean ruins.
@@daskalosBCE Stickman isn’t entirely correct in this assertion, tridents can also be obtained in the new trial chambers as a potential loot drop from the vaults, admittedly I don’t remember off the top of my head if they’re found in the normal or ominous vaults. Tridents are definitely most commonly found carried by drowned but I do think it’s worth noting that both the trident itself and a trident exclusive enchantment can be found in what are incredibly different underground structures.
We know this society can craft stuff that Steve can't so we mustn't assume that they could only get it from drowned
Compasses in Minecraft don't point north, they point to world origin.
Basically where your spawn chunks are.
Funky bit, Compasses don't work in the Nether or End unless through a special means. The Compass will erratically point to every direction.
You already mentioned Recovery Compasses, which yes, point to that player's last point of death.
Though normal Compasses can be converted into something else.
Interacting with a Lodestone with a Compass in hand turns it into a Lodestone Compass; this makes Compass orient to the Lodestone it is linked to, this allows a Compass to point to somewhere in the Nether or End.
Lodestone Compasses however make that Compass only work on the dimension the Lodestone is placed on.
Lodestones could have been invited by people from the over world (dude to the Redstone needed for compasses) that used them to explore
what if world spawn is the world's magnetic north pole.
@quesothedogquesothedog that does make sense. After all, there are a lot of things in Minecraft that don't make sense when looking at it from our perspective, but when you put things together, there's a lot of evidence besides the compases that supports this.
Very interesting how much of the city seems to be almost ritualistic in nature. I wonder if there ever was any actual living quarters, or if it was simply for rituals... So many chests have bones, I've looted through Ancient Cities before but I've never really noticed how often you get bones from them. It's really interesting how much you managed to theorize that makes so much sense, based on how little information you're given.
33:30 Compasses point to your spawn point, so it's highly likely the items did belong to an explorer. They probably went great distances, and used their compass to return to the city or to whatever home they may have had back then. They probably died of natural causes, as that wouldn't degrade the armor-only hits to them would. It's likely they never even got into battle, avoiding them at all costs.
Excellent point about the armor and compass!
Small correction: compasses point to the world spawn, not your personal spawn point.
@@goldenbatzlodestones exist, so it’s not completely incorrect.
26:44 This could have been a Courier that brought stuff in and out of the city and the armor was to protect them from being robbed.
Thats a great theory and a definite possibility
Delivery of the Diamond chip is non-negotiable!
i also feel like the bottles of enchanting could have been meant to repair the armor, since it had mending on it
when i see coal and bones in one place, i think of wither skeletons, since they commonly drop both. on top of that, the chests have specifically soul torches, an item that requires nether-exclusive materials. perhaps this implies that, even if they are not the same culture, they at least had communication/trade with the people responsible for the nether fortresses.
I feel like the horse armors are more things that were brought to the city or made for the city. Despite the big blue sky above you, the Ancient City are normally very deep underground and beneath mountains. This is two extremes far from the plains and savanna biomes where you would normally see horses. Also, there is no signs of a collapsed manmade tunnel leading between the city and the surface. So, unless there is an unknown type of portal that was shut off before your arrival, the people that used the location would have had to come through the caves (which are not good places to ride horses).
there is a definite entrance point in the city which suggests there was, at some point, a tunnel leading down
@@daskalosBCEor just an intended path into the city through the caves
Because of OP's valid point, I now believe that the original inhabitants came through a now deactivated portal from the theorized Otherside dimension.
Or maybe they had farm animals and bred them?
I never thought about it but it makes so much sense that archeologists would try to see which buildings were built later or earlier
yep! unfoirtunately, all i can tell is the orange buildings were early and the rest were later
I think the really interesting thing about interpreting Minecraft as a lived-in world with history, is that any fire you see burning on nether-sourced materials (soul sand, netherrack) very well could have been burning all the way from when it was still in use! Since nether stuff burns forever, the only way for that NOT to be true would be if someone put it out at some point. But I could totally see an "eternally burning" fire having some religious significance in a Minecraft society. I doubt that they worshipped the fire itself (like people very well might have if something like that really existed), since the materials you can do that with are relatively common. Once you have one block, you can have hundreds. But if they used it in some sort of ritual, then maybe it had some higher order of importance compared to, say, the candles?
Of course, we're talking about a game where even torches last forever, so it's hard to know how seriously to take all of this. But I'm just saying.
Also burning soul sand has interesting implications given the stuff you mentioned regarding souls near the end.
It's been really cool watching you and MC Oda go through all of this ancient city and seeing you guys using real life archaeology techniques, and the interpretation so far has also been very interesting! really looking forward to the next episode!
Glad you enjoy it!
I love that you included the game mechanics in determining the meaning of things, especially the echo shards and the curse of binding pants. If I do any storytelling with my builds, I'm going to use the curse of binding and reduced durability to show someone died.
This was a fascinating video to watch. I can't wait to see how the other structures are interpreted!
I know we talked a little bit about them as we worked on them, but i think youll be surprised by some
thank you for providing some professional insight into a fresh, reality-tinted hypothesis about the Ancient City. this is going to be an illuminating study to continue to check in on and watch evolve. i super look forward to it, i’ve always loved the Ancient Cities and developing lore about them :3
Glad you enjoy it! We'll be exploring these for a while!
For the fourth blue building I thought it could be a city guard. Armor is pretty obvious. Books to take notes on who's coming, who's leaving and what do they bring into/take out of the city. Bottles of enchanting could be interpreted as general "power ups". The catalysts could be a way of contacting/calling the warden if "shit hit the fan". The shards on the other hand might be a way to show the warden you're on their side.
Edit: Absolutely just a theory but I think it's interesting. The light blue bulidings might be spechial burial places for people (and maybe their families) who got killed by the warden. (Some kind of honorable death within their society?)
I think you make some good points. Unfortunately a lot of whats there is just too little to go off of, but i guess thats the point and half of the fun! :)
@daskalosBCE absolutely. I love just theorizing about stuff. I'll have to wait for and see your next videos to see if my theories comply with the other buildings' general ideas but I have a whole religion around the warden (so a religion about something that actually exists) in my mind with rituals to calm the warden or even make it see them as friendly. I'm excited to see where this journey takes us.
I feel that sculk explains the purpose of bottling and transporting experience. I believe the bottles are offerings to feed sculk.
@SorieI how did you come to that line of thought? What indicates to you that sculk is a vessel for experience?
Also if it is wouldn't it be more reasonable to assume experience would be extracted from sculk? What reason would there be to feed the sculk? I'm intrigued.
@ipex8772 sculk feeds off of the life force of whatever falls on it. There are two things in the game that outwardly express life forces, that is, soul sand and experience points. Both can be found in ancient cities. As for why the sculk drops experience, that's simple. It's alive.
While I absolutely respect the work you are putting in and have been watching all the ancient city series, I want to throw in a bit of context that I don't think you've acknowledged so far. I am also writing this as I watch and will add further comment as I listen. While they are decidedly *ancient* cities, they are also advanced cities, in a setting that has a demonstrated form of magic. This is decidedly outside your area of expertise (for reasons we may never know!) but could provide additional context to some of it.
For the "regular blue" buildings, I largely agree, the first one strikes me as funerary and cremation, however. I know that does get thrown around as a common use in archaeology but it seems appropriate, given the bones, fire, coal. Alternatively the coal and bones, after viewing the light blue, could suggest wither skeletons. We "know" there is some history involving the wither in minecraft, but it isn't totally clear.
I agree with your assumption on the first red building, for the second I would like to suggest it was used for enchanting or was an archive as you suggested. I have no idea what to make of the third, but it suggests to me that building layout was something that was easily produced.
Another comment suggested a sort of ritual use to the diamond hoes. I would like to counter the idea, ancient cities are the major centers of sculk growth. You can find it in regions without cities, but all cities are found with it. I would suggest they are the same as having a lawn mower. A produce of necessity if sculk had some value, which I believe the swift sneak books and warden motifs would support. It grows pretty aggressively, so being able to clear it out or keep it contained would be very valuable, and having a durable tool for it ideal.
For the light blue buildings on their own, I have no real thoughts except that it's strange to me they are elevated above the ground while having no visible entrance at that level. I have no training in archaeology to say if that would be meaningful to you or you would attribute that to collapse of the structure. I don't view the "warden " as the entrance. It seems more decorative and designed to look through and not enter, to me.
I like your thinking. I do feel like sculk, and the warden, got out of control at some point and thus it’s the quickly spreading thing it is today. I think when the original temples/cities were formed that the sculk took great effort and rituals to attain, and perhaps the relationship with the warden/s was also more amicable and full of reverence.
The amount of things that could have evolved over the scales of time is sometimes overwhelming. More time has past between the first and last Egyptian pyramids than time has past between the last pyramid and now…. And those cultures buildings and artifacts are not nearly as deep as an ancient city.
I’m thinking that last dark blue building may be an enchanter’s residence. The enchanted leggings seem to me to be something that had been maybe recently enchanted and being, like a commission or something of the like.
thats a good possiblility
I do wonder if the repetition of bones, coal, and music disks imply smaller scale religious rituals done by families inside of their own homes instead of at the primary temples, like how lots of people in real life have shrines in their houses.
This could be either that people were actively burning animals in or near their homes, or the remnants of the sacrifices that were not burned away were taken home to be preserved in a smaller personal shrine instead of the communal ones.
Also it is worth considering the idea that skulk-related items were not intentionally placed in chests but spread and grew into chests when the skulk spread further into the city.
Very cool video though! I love the interpretation of the chest items instead of just focusing on architecture like a lot of people do when talking about minecraft structures. Excited for the restoration video!
Interesting analysis! couple of my own thoughts: A compass in minecraft points to the world spawn which would've changed if you copypasted it into a different world. Probably wouldn't matter much because practically it does the same thing; point to a steady location, but still something to perhaps keep in mind. The other thing l'm curious about which might be a bit meta is to what degree you're taking "implied intention" from the devs into account. For example a stairs block objectively has the use of helping you get to an elevated area, however in designing a ruin stairs could also be used to imply that a block is ruined/incomplete which someone unfamiliar with minecraft building culture might not take into account. Of course this is an obvious example but it also carries over into the placement of the items in the chests; l think their scattered placement is meant to imply that it's a messy chest (otherwise it would mean that only "player" entities would be using the ancient city) and sculk blocks etc inside of the chest are meant to imply that sculk has started to grow in the chest. I don't know if that's a useful insight at all just wanted to share and very curious to see what other conclusions you'll draw :)
Those are some good points. Generally speaking I'm trying to go for a realistic standpoint while also taking the fact that this is a game developed by people unfamiliar with archaeology (I mean, a brush as our tool?). So I am unsure how far ill go down the meta rabbit hole. Though, I did have a talk with Oda about stairs possibly being degraded whole blocks
The sculk growing in the chest is definitely an interesting interpretation! There would have to be comparison to the level of sculk growth in the area to say how much merit it holds
I would lean towards the light blue buildings being ritual rooms for those going to dangerous jobs. The first one with the hoes, coal, and Skulk suggests workers who collect the Skulk blocks; the second with the armor, compass, and Notch Apples suggests soldiers or explorers. The building could have been used for ceremonies of leaving/return, with a priest marking the workers as the leave or return to “the Warden’s Embrace”, symbolized by walking out from or into the representation of the Warden.
The potions and glowberries could also be for ritual consumption, and the music discs could be to imply chanting was common.
I want to ad something, so the blue fire means soulsand and soulfire, this isnt just normal lights and neither are the candles, i think the ancient city people kept their dead around a while (potentially it had something to do with the sculc given its connection to xp and death, this is though a little bit outside the scope of the archeological perspective) this means that the ”red” temples were where they let those souls go and so the offerings are maybe the deceaseds items that they were giving them to help in the afterlife. Because of the different items in both temples that could indicate the first one being in a richer part of the city and the other one in a poorer given the fewer items and one of them having a hoe indicating him being some kind of farmer / at least worker
I love Daskalos holding his pointing stick at the lectern, that’s a really fun detail. Fantastic video as usual!!!
The bones and lead in Red 1 as opposed to the hoe and the glowberries in Red 2 make me think that maybe Red 1 was used for animal sacrifice and Red 2 was used for agricultural offerings
Just to note, I and a few other people (iirc) believe before discovering the ancient city, Illagers did explore the area due to the evidence of dark oak blocks and chests, blocks that the Illagers use also.
I touch on that earlier in the series :)
It is possible that some of the sculk contents of the chests are not hand-placed in relation to the building's purpose, but instead wound up infested in there; the Echo Shards also stand out to me in this regard, especially with the prevalance of Amethyst Shards - those in particular could be the result of long-term exposure that we now cannot replicate, and would explain the lack of found recovery compasses. The abundance of bones (perhaps coal, too, if it's been long enough for that to partially fossilize somehow; Fossils near the surface of Deserts are also often found partially substituted with coal ore) could also not have been the case at the time in these structures, especially under the hypothesis that those who made the Dark Oak additions gathered everything up into chests.
ok this has got to be the COOLEST thing ive seen anyone do w the ancient city; and what i love about your channel!! super excited for the next part
Thanks! I look forward to continuing the deep dive
Some interesting notes! I saw a comment suggesting that perhaps there was a lost technique for crafting Echo Shards.
Interesting detail for my fellow geology nerds, but crystal shape is entirely determined by its molecular makeup, present elements and conditions etc. And while echo shards do not occur naturally anywhere in Minecraft they do happen to share an exact crystalline shape with Amethyst shards!
As an added bonus to think about, I've also noticed that Amethyst and Echo Shards never seem to share much real-estate in a chest!
I love these kinds of videos where people exercise their real life professions and expertise within Minecraft's fictional world.
I've always wanted to rebuild the ancient city to what it originally was, this video's recreation is incredible!
Now THIS is what I've been most excited to see from this series!
A while back on another channel I had written my own take on an Archaeological perspective on the city, with the major caveat that I am not a trained professional, I'm just an enthusiast. It was actually really encouraging and cool to see an actual archaeologist add depth to the idea.
I had done two things differently;
- I had assumed homogeneity between different instances of the ancient cities. Each city has the same buildings in the same style, and the game is randomly generated. I thus assumed that the buildings themselves had useful information, but their layout (beyond the 4 quadrant layout which is present in all instances) did not, as their placement lacked intent on the part of the devs.
-I had not taken into account the contents of chests, again, on the assumption that being randomly generated, there would be nothing to gain from the contents of individual chests, only from the loot tables themselves. The city's entire item pool has intent on the part of the devs, the individual chests do not.
I guess in general; I couldn't forget that minecraft is randomly generated, y'know?
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The Red buildings had a piece of evidence in them that I focused in on and was surprised not to hear mentioned; the skull in the niche below the raised platform. This led me to assume that the structure had been a funerary temple of some kind, especially since it's sort-of like a mound, with a solid base and platforms on top.
Blue buildings (and all the similar "chamber" structures) I had also assumed were residences or storage buildings.
Light Blue being a mausoleum was unexpected, but definitely interesting. I was a little hesitant to declare anything a burial or funerary structure without a piece of definite human remains found inside, and so I had only clocked the red building on that.
I hadn't actually commented on LB when I had done my little investigation, as I had initially been focused on 'correcting' or at least reinterpreting the structures, as the names of the structures in the files didn't seem to match.
Red for instance is certainly not a "barracks", and the "sauna" (which I think this city lacks) is almost definitely a bath-house.
It seems to be a large public building, with a smaller pool atop a platform with open space beneath (possibly for lighting fires to heat the bath), a larger swimming pool beneath, and smaller rooms off to one side, possibly for changing or use as an actual sauna. It screams bath-house to me.
I think yours also lacks the building I tentatively identified as an insula. I am aware that insulae are specifically Roman public housing, I had assigned the name because of the larger upper floor that's often divided into sections with wall blocks and the open ground floor.
It just felt like a small apartment, with space on the ground floor for merchants or craftspeople and an upper story for tenants.
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In the end though, I had kinda come to the conclusion that the city might not even be a city. We see very little housing in proportion to the ceremonial structures, we don't see palaces, workshops and the like- at least, with no way to investigate for post holes and pot sherds here, that is-
It put me in the mind of places like Angkor Watt and other massive temple-cities. It may have absolutely had a permanent population of priests or religious figures, but I think the builders of this place didn't live here full-time.
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I'm very excited to see where this goes from here, I may chime in again on the next video, who knows.
Your knowledge is invaluable, I appreciate so much that you have elected to share it openly, and for fun on projects like these.
I always learned best from people like you doing their thing, it's what gave me my passion for history in the first place, thanks so much for doing these!
23:20 Its important to note that magic exists in this world. There are lots of empty books, and two enchanted books... Maybe they were an enchanter?
Love seeing informational deep dives for minecraft! Just got back into the game with some friends and found your channel and loving it. Wanted to be an archeologist or paleontologist when i was younger, before going into nursing.
We know that amethyst can be used to make sculk react to certain frequencies (calibrated sculk sensor), so eco shards COULD just be very delicate worked amethyst shards, combined with sculk so they only react to certain frequencies.
You mentioned the chests, which seem to indicate someone came in later, which is also marked by the fact that wool is found in ancient cities. So could the bones and coal also be the remains of the people who once lived there AFTER some disaster struck them? I mean, coal and bones could also mean victims of a disaster who are being kept apart to study what happened, or they were put there as a tomb robber was cleaning the place out.
either of those are possibilities if the chests are a later addition
It's worth considering that most of the chest loot is meant to be temporary storage. The Ancient City, when you look at the architecture and the clues we get from the rest of MC, is clearly designed around maneuvering around a Warden. On top of that, there are no houses, or really any buildings meant for families; there's only barracks, implying that this city was largely military.
With that, the hoes make more sense. Where there's a Warden, there's often Skulk, so being able to get rid of it would be helpful in an emergency.
The bones could be from the remains of animals fed to the Skulk, since the ancients clearly saw some sort of value in the Warden to build several monuments to it.
The shattered disc definitely seems like the remnants of a wine-bottle-esque ceremony, christening the completion of a new compound meant to do something with the Warden.
The non-silktouch hoes could be for gathering xp. The books and enchanted books lean towards enchanting with XP and the sacrifice of mobs often grows the sculk which can then be harvested later.
The name ‘Warden’ also implies some form of protector - perhaps of the Priesthood or the Sculk.
The curse of Binding enchant also implies some form of ritualistic entombment in armour.
Perhaps as some form of punishment?
Interesting video, here are some of my thoughts as far as actual lore goes:
Skulk is artificial, names like Skulk Sensor are very artificial names, especially considering that it can be calibrated. They’re also very compatible with both Redstone and amethyst, proving once more to their artificiality further more the ancient city portal appears to be made from skunk and skunk bones, we also find things such as hose in the chests evident that whoever built, these knew what they were doing.
Also the Ancient City has symbols of the Well of Fate. There’s also evidence of Enderling’s being present, such as with the high chests in some of the structures.
Theres a lot of conclusions that you are making that are not based on solid evidence. Just to be clear, I am approaching this from a realistic point of view, one that is based on my experience as an archaeologist.
Nothing, and i mean NOTHING should be taken from minecraft legends as true canon. Mojang has said that legends is just that... legend. As for Dungeons, nothing from dungeons should be seen as having any influence on this game. Yes Mojang has stated it is canon, but we dont know where, or WHEN dungeons takes place. For all we know it is billions of years in the future.
I find it interesting that the name in the files for the first structure you go over is "barracks", but it seems very much like a religious site.
either thats a placeholder name, or the devs have never seen barracks before
@@daskalosBCEyeah, I can't even fathom where the beds would be. Maybe it was called that before the shrines were added
31:02 This might have been some sort of reservoir (maybe from sculk) or they tried to grow sculk in a controlled environment.
The thick walls, high chest and small entrance through the Warden just don’t make sense for ceremonial purposes.
The Warden might just be decorative and filled with an other material that deserved or was stolen.
34:55 or some sort of storage or safe or maybe it was we repurchased for one of those.
I think itll make more sense when you see the restored product
But wouldn’t people in a crypt get buried with the armor they used and not a completely untouched.
not necessarily, there are examples of funerary weapons and armor in history
Be interesting to have one person build you a town, with stuff underground, etc. and see if you can interpret it to how they meant it.
Funny you should mention that, Ill be doing just that but in reverse! Stay tuned :)
Also, im totally up for just that very thing
@@daskalosBCE I have a week off work. Want me to prepare you a world? I was stuck on finding a new video project. :)
sure! I may not be able to get to it for a while though
@@daskalosBCE I'll get going on it, and I'm a patient person. :)
this actually rules
both learning the thought process and methods behind archaeology as well as seeing other people in the comments contribute their own theories and ideas to add onto it
im gonna go binge the whole series :-D
I was looking at the video length and was asking: "how can you cover all the structures in this time??"
But there's a part 2, can't wait for it! This was a very nice going through of what the ancient cities could be, reminds me of when I speculate about things as a child, only this time it's an official job
Gonna throw in my thesis into the ring:
I think there are three destinct eras to keep track of, the city *before* the warden, the city *after* the warden and its collapse and lastly the abandoned city as we find it.
I have a theory that the red ritual sites are not dedicated to the warden but rather too the large central portal structure. In fact, I dont belive that they were of strictly ritual purpose either but rather research locations where they attempted to activate miniature versions of the large portal through various means. If you wish to read into it further, following common understanding of time passing being depicted as going from left to right; the left chest represents the materials they experimented with and the right chest show the results or tools used to deal with the results (hoe to gather skulk etc)
Then at some point after they manage to activate the large portal, the warden comes through and wreaks havoc on the city. This is when things like the swift sneak books start to appear as the citizens attempt to find survival meathods and ways to deal with the warden; sneaking being an effective meathod to stay hidden from sensors. This is (to my mind) supported by the fact that these objects start to appear in the blue houses instead of the larger buildings as larger society has broken down and small groups of people have to survive through their local means as the long and open stone streets would make sound travel far and alert the warden.
(Also also quick sidenote on the blue houses. There is a block in the right corner of all of them that clearly marks where the door would be. Perhaps the face on it acts like a "welcome rug" or as a guardian against tresspassers.
I also think its important to separate the generic dungeon loot table in the findings as they are there primarily for gameplay purposes (much like how everything is found typical wood chests). I think it would be more telling if you look at the unique loot tables for the city specifically to see what is supposed to actually originate from there. Music discs, horse armour and some other loot can be found in all naturally spawned chests so being able to find Diamond horse armour in a desert temple and the ancient city should not necessarily be seen as a link between them for example.
very calming and interesting to listen to while playing minecraft, subbed!
The red buildings you covered first, i see the half story down as a sort of mini catacombs, i havent gotten to the blue parts in the video so idk if its was covered, but the skulls and lifted platforms, enough to lay a body on, is interesting to me. I feel like it could be a place to place the dead and give offerings, but i also think the whole city was a kind of graveyard or worship place
Been waiting for this since watching your trial ruins excavation! I know i’m late to the party but your content is really cool!!
15:37 the fragments could potentially not be from the same original disc,
If you listen to the disc it sounds odd, completely unlike every other disc with a weird mash up of sounds.
It’d be pretty weird to make one specific disc that sounds like a random mash of music and break it into fragments (at least it would in my mind, it could maybe have been made purposely fragmented sounding to reference how they shatter it, though that seems unlikely)
I would agree with you on it not being the same disc. Unfortunately the way the game is coded you make one disc from those fragments. It would be nice if those fragments were coded in a different way. Id be interested to see if re-editing the parts of it could make it make sense
23:50 I think the person in this residence, while record keeper is a good guess, could also be some kind of magic focused/ enchanter person!
In Minecraft, you can enchant both tools directly OR you can enchant an empty book, which is used to upgrade/ layer enchantments. With two swift sneak books, it’s possible this person was responsible for supplying the swift sneak enchantments as the people tried to live alongside the warden, with the bones being the remains of animal sacrifices used to give the enchanter the XP required!
I just found this channel today, but based on your content, I highly recommend looking into the "Dragon Quest Builders" games. The entire premise is about rebuilding the a world after an apocalypse and there are various ruins scattered all around. It's right up your alley.
I think this video is by far the most interesting video I watched on yt in a looong time
Oh I’m loving this. 34:06 This is gonna be a big stretch, but I almost wonder if the placement of Cursed items isn’t so much reflective of the potential occupant’s actual possessions, but is rather an added deterrent against graverobbing? Stretching even further at the risk of doing the intellectual equivalent of the splits, if we go along with the idea that the wooden chests are later additions but that they hold the room’s original contents, could constructing newer containers maybe have been a way for these later builders to “contain” these curses?
Very well made video!
It's really interesting to listen to you exploring the structure!
About wooden chests:
There are scrapped material from the initial plans for the update with stone tombs with treasure!
So wooden chests are more of a game design difficulties.
So you need to keep in mind that most things can just be oversimplification because of time/complexity for development.
When it comes to seeing all the horse armor and potential horse bones in the various chests, alongside the fact that there are possible mausoleums in the area, makes me wonder that, rather than sacrifices, the horses were dead pets and such that were entombed in this area as well, possible cremated, this being less of an area of worship (although some sort of ancestor worship is possible) and more of a massive burial ground and the assorted related facilities.
I agree with this.
I am very much enjoying this, Looking forward to the next video! :)
My personal theory is the chests are kind of like caskets which where being prepared for a funeral pyre. It would explain why the chests in the first part match the locations of the fires in the smaller monument, and why each chest seems to be filled with something that can burn like coal, torches, and candles (generally)
This is a super cool video! I loved seeing your perspective and think it's super neat, from someone who has absolutely no experience in the field.
That being said, I do know a lot about minecraft, and a bit about history - and I'd like to argue that the light blue structure with the large warden ribcage depiction and the chest with diamond hoes was not a place primarily of ceremony, but of resource collection. Like, mining, and quarrying.
one of the main reasons a survival player brings a good hoe into the deep dark, and by extension, ancient cities, is to quickly find diamonds. It's a legitimate method to insta-mine loads and loads of skulk off of the deepslate, which uncovers many diamond ore deposits. This is because, in minecraft, diamonds generate much more often when not exposed to air.
I think the whole structure was a resource hub for miners, or maybe even a sanctioned mining guild. They would pay their respects to the fearsome beast of the deep, the warden, to bless their expedition into the mines or the fields of skulk. The bones represent a warning to other miners about miners who were disorderly, or misconducted their prayers or mining operations. Just a theory! (READ REPLY)
Continuing actually, this makes a lot of sense with the other two light blue buildings - these are places to stock up for a great harvest of materials; which can totally be seen as a sacred act. It's fair to assume that the residents of these cities lived their entire lives underground, so they would have had to gone to the nether to gather wood and food, which could be why they have that giant portal in the middle - they would have had to live entirely off the land to mine the resources needed for their settlements. the coal could be literal coal; they needed it for warmth, the armor could be from protection from mobs, the books for recordkeeping of the resources they've collected.
So random but I’m so happy you mentioned that all wood that was potentially used would be gone by now, it reminded me immediately of when I went to visit a handful of native ruins in Arizona and the Park Rangers pointed that out while we were walking around, for the most part wood is the first thing to disintegrate. I know you’re an Archeologist so everything in here is based on analyzing real world structures but that part in particular was cool to me :)
I also agree with you that it was a ceremonial structure. For the most part, our current idea of the lore is that Ancient Cities are where the ancient builders summoned The Warden to defeat a Wither that was destroying the world by collecting Soul Energy. Soul energy is found in the lanterns, campfires, the souls that release when running on soul sand (which is required to create a Wither), the blue energy from The Warden, etc. ✌🏻 so I think you’re completely right
The idea of the ancient cities’ residents worshipping the warden reminds me of how with game theory their theory is that the builders of the ancient cities were fleeing the wither, or at least they were trying to make sure it’d never find them, hence why the ancient cities are so far underground, and seems to not have been buried naturally, anyways their idea is that the wither did find them, but then the warden showed up and killed the wither, as recorded on the broken music disc, so using that idea, it would make sense they’d worship the warden because it killed the thing that was hunting them down so relentlessly they felt they needed to dig extremely far underground just to escape it
One thing I always do when I find ruins in games is try and figure out what the ruin was for. Sometimes, the ruins are just set pieces and aren't actually made to be analyzed, and thats fair enough, but when you are able to extrapolate information from them, ooo I get so giddy!
I'm not an archaeologist (i'm studying to become a etnologist, but, lets see where that goes) so my analyses of ruins aren't as proper, but it feels nice to know i'm not alone in over-thinking (or perhaps just the right amount of thinking for this game . minecraft loves hiding context clues to the world in structures) analysing video-game ruins :D
25:50
I think it may be a maintenance worker. Supposing sculk was a sort of biological defensive system for the whole ancient city, a maintenance worker of this system would need the sculk catalysts to use sculk in the first place, xp to feed the sculk, and armor to operate such a dangerous system. The books are certainly useful tools like manuals or records for someone tasked with maintaining such a complicated thing. The disc may be linked to the echo shards that are themselves linked to sculk, so it may also be a scientist that lived there.
If it wasn't for the other discs, i would have thought the fragments was just deterioration rather than ritual destruction.
For that large area you interpreted as a mausoleum near the end of the video, I agree but think it's too open for long term storage. I believe it's a morgue. Have you ever seen The Walking Dead? In the very first episode after awakening from a coma, the protagonist leaves the hospital and finds a great number of corpses covered in sheets arranged in the courtyard of the hospital, presumably by the employees in order to store the vast number of corpses which were generated during the apocalypse. Since the ancient city is so dangerous, I think that building is similar, a kind of large morgue in which the dead are arranged on the wide floor, possibly for family to claim them. The chest would be for the items of the unclaimed dead.
You’re assuming the ancient city was dangerous, but there’s no evidence for that :)
"Nope, nope, nope. Don't get side tracked." Most relatable thing ever.
maybe the light blue ceremonial structures, considering where the shelves in the walls are, are just another part of a ritual - for example, they cement the dead into the walls (like in a catacomb, as you mention) and all that extra space could either be for some celebration (of the dead, considering that the dead seem to be quite important to have so many structures dedicated to them) or perhaps for the addition of more walls to place more shelves in. that little pillar in the middle of the room might be the start of a new wall, or where they planned for new walls to go.
it also makes sense to me, judging from the height of the warden chest depiction, that the building might've been intended to have stories gradually added as it fills up if is indeed being used in this way. it'd make sense structurally too, since you have all these extra walls to support the weight of the added stories, and plenty of space where a wall might not fit if the centre IS being filled in that could be used for stairs or a ladder.
obviously just going off on a limb and making guesses, but it's an interesting thing to think about.
i think i've found my favorite thing about this game: scientists using their expertise to analyze the game. couple weeks ago it was a geologist talking about tuff and iron, now this
It’s very interesting thinking about how this was maybe a religious (ritualistic) complex. It makes you think, maybe they created or used some sort of magic to create the warden to protect themselves. But what are they protecting them selves from, why did they have to hide underground? They might’ve used the ritual buildings to burn animals as a sacrifice to the warden because animals are very noisy and they had no use for them. But really makes me curious why they would sacrifice their lives and having to stay quiet on purpose. And where did they go? Did something go horribly wrong that caused them to all die (the large amount of skulk) or maybe have to leave this world? (The giant portal like thing in the middle) it kinda makes me think of the Dwemer from Skyrim, they were mysterious and had giant complexes underground with magic and tech way ahead of their time. But then they all disappeared from this world. Very interesting! I’m excited to learn more about archaeology and eventually maybe other structures.
Or maybe it was a test that they delved too deep in and it ended very badly… just my thoughts though.
Something to keep in mind (as I see it come up time and time again) Being underground does not equal hiding. Also, we cannot assume the inhabitants died off, they could have simply left after the skulk became too unmanageable.
@@daskalosBCE yeah, lots of mysteries. I’ve always assumed they were hiding based off of Minecraft lore but it’s very interesting to think about all of the possibilities. I love your videos and your way of understanding and explaining things! Keep up the great work!
@@daskalosBCE but would they have left all those items in the chests? I could imagine maybe removing offerings in religious places would be taboo, but if blue was residences, you'd expect them to grab things like armour if they weren't rushing out (and I doubt unmaganble sculk would be a "we need to go no time to grab stuff" situation.)
perhaps what is left in the chests are offerings to close out the structures, or perhaps they planned on coming back and wanted to leave themselves some supplies.
For the second location being more 'sparce' but having more specific items in the chest, I thought about it and the first location could be for the dedication and sacrifices to the Warden, while the second location is dedicated to the Warden's younger brother, who is the the one you pray and sacrifice to for the harvest, not just with the hoe, but with the berries, and the lead.
I like this video, way to make me think out some random stuff ;)
My father's friend was an archeologist, I was with him on an archeology terrain survey once, it's facing what you can learn from just observation
If we consider that this society is operating in a world that uses the rules of Minecraft then the person with the house that had the catalysts and exp bottles could have had a hypothetical "exp farmer" job or been an enchanter. A property of catalysts is that they retain the exp of mobs that are killed near it. The person could have worn armour and fought monsters near the catalysts in order to store exp and then use it later to enchant books.
23:40 I prefer the interpretation that this was an enchanter. The empty books were for enchanting. Possibly, the enchanter made the first version, then managed to make a second, and was trying to make a third. The music disk relates to ritual (and potentially sacrifice), and the bones are from a creature(s) the enchanter killed for experience in order to enchant.
26:30 For this one, I liked that scientist idea. Specifically, the idea that they're doing very dangerous research involving sculk (danger from the warden). Catalysts and books for research, armour for protection in the worst case, and possibly bottles of experience because sculk not only drops experience when broken, but also spawns from it (when from an animal). There could be a darker assumption that the bottles are to be splashed on a person to be killed to observe, or possibly in a duel situation (hence armour), but the lack of any weapon or tool doesn't land me convinced. It's possible that the echo shards (in some way the player cannot replicate) interact with the bottles of experience, spawning sculk near a catalyst, in the same way mob death does.
Do keep note that EXP according to the lore might be the "soul" of other creatures, so the exp bottles might perhaps be soul offerings to the skulk, since the skulk gains sustenance from souls, or perhaps urns containing loved ones or the deceased.
Minecraft is never going to be the same after this, isn't it? ;)
** puts back diamond sword in the grave he robbed and starts thesis on the architectural style differences between desert and underwater temples **
Not in the least! Haha!
4:12 hmmmm, actually, Cottonwood Falls, Kansas has a population of 851, not 850, so you are wrong and this video is totally incorrect because it contains false information.
I'd like to offer something on the light blue. I saw some tables of sorts too, so perhaps not just some sort of burial grounds, but also a funeral home of sorts? Also nice catch on the last light blue being some sort of military funeral. I'd not have caught that if But hadn't pointed out the enchantments.
8:50 I don't think that's the case, within the context of other structures we can see that the "locals" tend to store items not in full stacks even when they're purely practical, like storing food in a house. While it can't be taken as proof that this was the case a long time ago, it's a pattern shared by all storages used by groups that precede player's presence.
23:52, I think it might be more like a shaman. The bones and disc denote similarities between them and the priests, so I feel as if they occupy somewhat similar roles. The presence of enchantment books suggest that the resident might have used enchanted books themselves, or given them to others. This mirrors the practice of shamans casting spells on their tribe's warriors to grant them extra abilities, or how some priest 'blessed' swords or other equipment to grant Fortune to the weilder or to help them Smite unholy beings. Finally, a shaman might have also kept records or have written down prophecies, explaining the books.
You're a certified interpretive guide but are you a certified interpretive dancer? That's my requirement to prove you're qualified to do this
2 notes: The archivist house could also potentially be a shared residential area,as could the fourth one. This could explain the chest having objects relating to multiple professions. Also,Wither Skeletons (living charred remains) drop bones and coal so the coal could definitely be from cremation, even though we also find it alongside bones
There's no real basis for this... But I wonder if the Curse of Binding could potentially have some kind of cultural significance. Like, the first possibility that comes to mind is as a sort of wedding ring type of thing, a symbolic "binding" between two people through marriage (though probably not given the mausoleum it was found it).
Alternatively (and more likely) it could be a good luck charm, given the fact that it was undamaged, to I dunno bind the person's body to their grave so it will symbolically never be removed from its place of rest or something like that.
Just throwing out ideas, probably wayyy too speculative to really be considered though.
In regards to the fourth blue building (the ones you deemed to be residences), I think there are two things worth considering. First, it's possible more than one person lived there. Given they're fairly small structures, it probably wasn't a big family or something, but its possible that the reason the objects could have so many meanings is they were the shared belongings of two people, such as a couple, who each worked different jobs. Obviously its hard to say anything definitively since we only have items, but its at least worth thinking about imo. Second, I think its good to consider what jobs might overlap or be worthing learning skills from outside the main focus. Maybe the occupant of residence four was an enchanter, or maybe they learned enchanting to supplement their work as an explorer/fighter. Or maybe if the occupant was an enchanter, part of their duties was gathering experience; not only through bottles o' enchanting, but through killing mobs. (This would be evidenced by owning armor, as well as skulk catalysts, as I think the people of the ancient city likely understood how the catalysts and mob exp interact.)
I really enjoyed this video! Its so fun to see Minecraft analyzed through this lens and to hear a real archeologist construct a theory around what the fictional civilization could've been like. I'm definitely going to check out your other stuff and share with my friends. Thanks so much for making this!
I think the building with the skulk catalyst and the enchanted leggings could have been either an explorer or a warrior. The leggings for protection, the shards for making a recovery compass, and the books+enchantment bottles for enchanting or fixing gear. Definitely could have been a warrior since the catalysts could have been trophies or momentos from slain wardens.
Also, what if all of the coal found in the chests are from killing wither skeletons? Disc 5 does suggest a connection between the wither and the ancient city if that really is the wither’s death cry at the end of the disc.
At the time 7:45 when you're talking about that statue, in the Codes for the Ancient city It's actually called portal statue and it resembles the giant centerpiece of the ancient city