Overview
An ancient city is a stealth puzzle with a 500-health penalty for failing it, and the correct approach is to never fight at all. Nothing spawns naturally in the deep dark, so every sound in the city is yours: sprinting, breaking blocks, opening chests, landing from a fall. Sculk sensors read those vibrations and feed sculk shriekers, and the fourth shriek summons a Warden, which ignores armour with a sonic boom that hits for 10 through a full netherite set and cannot be outrun on foot. Walk, do not sprint. Place wool over sensors and shriekers — wool absorbs vibrations entirely — or simply break the shriekers with any tool, since a broken shrieker cannot count. Carry a bucket of water and a few blocks so a fall never becomes a shriek. What you are there for is narrow but irreplaceable: Swift Sneak books, which exist nowhere else and take crouch speed to roughly three-quarters of walking, echo shards for the recovery compass, and enchanted golden apples in unusual quantity. The reinforced deepslate frame in the middle leads nowhere and cannot be mined, so ignore it and loot the outer chests first, where the escape route is short.
Swift Sneak enchanted books, echo shards for the recovery compass, the Disc Fragment 5 that crafts the 5 music disc, sculk catalysts, enchanted golden apples and diamond gear. It is also the only place to see — and avoid — a warden without breeding one by accident.
A vast deepslate ruin buried in the deep dark, built around a central sculk-covered structure and a frame of reinforced deepslate that leads nowhere. The floor is laced with sculk sensors and sculk shriekers: sensors detect movement, shriekers accumulate warnings, and the fourth shriek summons a warden. The city has no natural mob spawns at all, so everything that happens there is your own noise. It is the only source of the Swift Sneak enchantment and echo shards for the recovery compass.
It is rare in the Overworld, restricted to Deep Dark, and it generates at about Y=-51, always within the deep dark.
How to get it
Ancient cities generate at about Y=-51 inside deep dark biomes, which themselves form under mountainous terrain with few cave openings. Dig a staircase down to Y=-52 under a mountain and tunnel; the sculk patches and the total silence announce the biome long before the city does.
Tips
- Lay wool under your feet and over sculk sensors; wool blocks vibrations completely and is the cheapest warden insurance there is.
- Break every sculk shrieker you pass with any tool. A shrieker that cannot shriek cannot add to the warning count.
- Never sprint and never fall. Both generate vibrations loud enough to carry across several sensors at once.
- If a warden does emerge, throw a snowball or an arrow at a distant block to distract it, then leave the way you came.
Version notes
Added in 1.19 with the deep dark, the warden and the sculk family. Nothing about the city has changed since, though the recovery compass it supplies echo shards for was introduced in the same release.
Properties
It generates in the Overworld, which is the only dimension with a day-night cycle and weather, and the one every distance in the game is measured against. In a world with cheats on, /locate structure minecraft:ancient_city gives the coordinates of the nearest one. Without cheats, an explorer map from a cartographer villager is the reliable route for the structures that have one; everything else is exploration.
- Biomes it generates in
- 1
- Notable loot items
- 9
Where it generates
Ancient City generates in one biome: Deep Dark. Outside those it will not generate at all, however far you travel.
Notable loot
Its loot includes Enchanted Golden Apple, Echo Shard, Disc Fragment, Sculk Catalyst, Diamond, Diamond Hoe, Saddle, Name Tag, and Soul Torch. These are the notable entries rather than the full loot table — the common filler (bread, coal, iron nuggets) is omitted, and in some structures the best of it comes from a vault or a spawner rather than a chest.
Mobs found here
Warden generate here. Several of them spawn nowhere else, which is usually the reason to make the trip.
What to watch out for
4 things to prepare for before you go in:
- Sculk shriekers summon a warden on the fourth activation
- The warden ignores armour with its sonic boom
- Total darkness and Darkness effect
- Deep drops between city terraces
Guides and tools that cover this
Frequently asked questions
How many shrieks summon a warden?
Three warnings accumulate harmlessly; the fourth shriek spawns the warden. Warning levels decay over time, so waiting quietly for a while resets your margin.
Can you kill a warden?
It has 500 health, ignores armour with its sonic boom and cannot be knocked back, so fighting one is a losing proposition. Avoidance is the intended answer.
Do mobs spawn inside ancient cities?
No. The deep dark has no natural mob spawns at all, which is exactly why every vibration the sensors pick up is one you made.
How do I find Ancient City?
Ancient City generates in the Overworld, only in Deep Dark, and is rare. /locate structure minecraft:ancient_city finds the nearest one instantly with cheats on.
What loot is in Ancient City?
The notable entries are Enchanted Golden Apple, Echo Shard, Disc Fragment, Sculk Catalyst, Diamond, Diamond Hoe and 3 more.
When was Ancient City added?
Ancient City was added in Java Edition 1.19.
Related pages
Structures that share Ancient City's loot, its mobs or its biomes — not simply the next few in the list.
