How to Find the Ancient City: Mobs, Loot, and Secret Room | Is There a Portal?

The Ancient City is one of the many structures that can be found in the Overworld. Read on to learn how to find the Ancient City, its mobs and loot, how to open the secret room, is there a portal, as well as how to navigate and survive the Ancient City in Minecraft.

How to Find the Ancient City

Find the Deep Dark

All Biomes With the Structure
Deep Dark

The Ancient City can be found in the Deep Dark biome - an underground biome that only generates in negative Y axis.

You can keep track of your coordinates by pressing F3 on your computer if you're using Java. In Bedrock, you can head on over to Settings and turn on Show Coordinates under the Game tab to see your coordinates.

If you don't want to play with your coordinates on, simply dig down until you find Deepslate. That's when you'll know you're under negative Y axis. From there, keep digging around until you stumble upon a Sculk block.

List of All Biomes

Locate the Structure via Command

Locating structures via a command is also possible for both the Bedrock and Java Edition of the game.

For those playing on Java, you can type in the command "/locate structure" in the command line followed by the ID of the structure you want to find and the game will give you the coordinates of the nearest structure you're trying to find.

In Bedrock, the command "/locate" followed by the structure you want to find will also give you the same result.

Once you know the structure's coordinates, you can either go there by foot or teleport yourself using the command "/tp @s " followed by the coordinates of the structure.

List of All Commands and Cheats

Ancient City Portal

In the middle of the Ancient City is a huge portal-like structure. It is surrounded by candles and soul fire can be seen underneath it.

Fans are speculating that this structure is indeed a portal to another dimension because of its shape. However, this hasn't been confirmed yet. We will update this page once more information about this structure is available.

How to Open Ancient City Secret Room

Underneath the portal-like structure in the middle of the city is a secret redstone room. It can be opened in two ways.

Dig Straight Down

The first one is by digging down from the structure in the middle. From there, you can simply drop down to the secret room below.

Trigger Secret Entrance

The second one is by triggering the Sculk Sensor near the secret entrance. The secret entrance is just underneath the broken wooden walkway near the portal-like structure.

To open the secret entrance, you need to get the golden apple or golden carrot inside the chest in the center of the portal-like structure first. Next, stand near the secret entrance and eat the golden apple. This will trigger the Sculk Sensor nearby and will open the secret entrance for you.

Ancient City Overview

Ancient City
Dimension	Overworld

Ancient City Features

The Ancient City can be found inside the Deep Dark biome. It's a massive underground city that is surrounded by Sculk. It has a huge portal-like structure in the middle with a secret red stone room underneath.

There are plenty of chests to loot here and you can even find skeleton skulls and candles lying around in the structure.

It's also a good source of Soul Sand without having to go to the Nether.

However, exploring the structure won't be easy. It is home to the Sculk Block, Sculk Catalyst, Sculk Sensor, and the Sculk Shrieker. These 4 blocks help each other out in sensing movements in a specific area. Whenever they sense a movement, a Warden spawns.

Ancient City Mobs

Hostile Mobs

All Mobs in the Biome
Warden

Deep Dark is home to only one mob - the Warden. It is a hostile but blind mob that will kill anything on its way once it senses their vibrations.

It spawns whenever a Sculk Shrieker senses movements and lets out 4 shrieks. The Warden spawns from the ground near where the Sculk Shrieker sensed the movement.

The player will be able to hear its heartbeat through the walls of the biome even when it's far away. It will eventually despawn by burying itself in the ground once it doesn't sense any more vibration nearby.

List of All Mobs

Ancient City Loot

Chest Loot

The following are the items that players can loot from chests in the Ancient City.

All Chest Loot
Disc Fragment	Echo Shard	Name Tag	Enchanted Book	Book
Amethyst Shard	Coal	Potion of Regeneration	Diamond Horse Armor	Bottle o' Enchanting
Saddle	Bone	Diamond Leggings	Iron Leggings	Diamond Hoe
Lead	Compass	Glow Berries	Golden Apple

List of All Items

Swift Sneak

This enchanted book can be applied to your leggings so you can move faster while crouching. This enchantment can only be found inside chests in Ancient Cities.

Candles, Soul Torch, and Skeleton Skulls

Candles, Soul Torch, and Skeleton Skulls can also be found lying around in Ancient Cities.

Blocks

Blocks Found in the Biome
Soul Sand	Sculk Catalyst	Sculk	Sculk Vein
Sculk Shrieker	Sculk Sensor

Ancient Cities are home to several unique blocks. The most common ones are the Sculks.

The Sculk Catalyst generates Sculk Blocks when a mob dies within 8 blocks from it. These Sculk Blocks will then have a chance to spawn a Sculk Sensor or a Sculk Shrieker. When the latter senses any kind of movement, it will alert a Sculk Shrieker nearby, which then lets out a shriek that spwans a Warden.

Ancient Cities also generate soul sand. You can get them from the structure instead of going to the nether.

List of All Blocks

Ancient City Tips and Tricks

★ Ancient City Tips and Tricks ★
Bring lots of night vision potions Bring lots of hoes Bring plenty of wool Crouch Do not fight the warden

Bring Lots of Night Vision Potions

Player view without using a Potion of Night Vision.

Same view of the player, but after using the potion.

It can get pretty dark in the Ancient City so it is recommended to craft plenty of Night Vision potions before going there. This will help you see a lot better when exploring and sneak past the Warden easier.

Bring Lots of Hoes

Most blocks in the Ancient City can be effectively mined with a hoe. To traverse the structure safely, use a hoe and get rid of all the Sculks in your way. Sculk Blocks also give XP when mined so it's a win!

Walk on Wool

Walking on wool masks vibrations and movements so it's a great idea to walk on them as much as you can when you're in an Ancient City.

However, not every surface of the structure will be wool. Because of this, it's still a good idea to bring extra wool blocks to make safer walkways in the Ancient City.

Crouch

Alternatively, you can just crouch when you see a Sculk Sensor or a Sculk Shrieker nearby. Doing so makes less sound, therefore you won't trigger the Shrieker and accidentally spawn a Warden.

Do Not Fight the Warden

The Warden is the new terrifying mob players can encounter in the Deep Dark biome and the Ancient City. They are very strong and bulky. Fighting one is not worth it because it will take a lot of time and it can kill you very quickly. When it dies, it will only give you a Sculk Catalyst and nothing more.

Instead of killing Wardens, we recommend sneaking past it by crouching or walking on wool.

Minecraft Related Guides

List of All Structures

Overworld Structures

Ancient City