How to Find a Desert Temple in Minecraft

Co-authored by Zac Churchill

Last Updated: October 12, 2022 References

Looking to indulge your inner Indiana Jones in Minecraft? Try searching for desert temples, rare structures that spawn randomly in the game's desert regions. Not only are these temples a sight to behold — they can also be home to rare loot and treasures. Finding a desert temple takes a little luck since there's no foolproof way to guess where they'll be, but once you find one, you'll definitely know it!

Method 1

Method 1 of 2:

Locating a Temple

1
Create a new world or enter an existing one. Start your Minecraft game as you normally would. You can potentially find desert temples in any map with large desert regions — it doesn't matter if you're playing by yourself or online with others.
- However, in multiplayer games, there's always the risk that a temple you find may have been looted or vandalized by others before you get there, so if you want to find a desert temple that's guaranteed to be "pristine," play a single-player world.
- If you don't want to go to the trouble of exploring for desert temples yourself, it's not hard to find world seeds online that make the task much easier. For instance, the following seeds will create worlds which have a desert temple near the spawn point:
- Minecraft Versions 1.8 and 1.9 Seed: 1868071005
- Minecraft Versions 1.10 through 1.12 Seed: 1756427906 ^{[1]
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- Minecraft Version 1.13 Seed: 65861355 ^{[2]
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Find a large desert. Desert temples spawn randomly in desert biomes. There won't necessarily be one temple in each desert — there can be more than one or none at all. Thus, your best bet is to start searching in the largest desert you can find — the more space in the desert, the better chance that there is at least one temple in it.
- There isn't really any single "right" way to find a desert, unfortunately. Deserts are generated from the world seed, so, unless you're already familiar with the world you're in, you may need to wander for quite some time (especially in the unlucky event that your world seed doesn't have many deserts.)There is a way to "cheat" outside of the game, however — see below.
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3
Look for the pyramid shape of a desert temple. Once you're in a desert, you'll want to start looking for a large, blocky pyramid-shaped structure made from sandstone in the distance. There will be two large, square towers at the front of the temple with markings on them made from orange clay. Since there are few visual obstructions like mountains in the desert, you should be able to see it from a long ways away.
- Desert temples always spawn with their floor at y = 64.000. In some cases, this can lead to them being partly buried.^{[3]
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  Research source} If you see what looks like a small pyramid with none of the rest of the temple, you may actually be looking at the very top of a buried temple!
4
If you have a map, look for a squarish grey shape. Having a map can make it a little easier to find temples (and to find your way back to one once you've discovered it.) Desert temples show up as gray on maps (just like plain stone), but have a characteristic boxy shape that's not normally seen for natural stone deposits.^{[4]
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- See our article on making a map in Minecraft if you're not sure how to get your hands on this useful tool.
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If you're sick of looking, use a Desert Temple Finder App. So you've tried finding a desert temple the old fashioned way and you've come up frustratingly empty-handed? There is still hope! Use the Desert Temple Finder online app from chunkbase.com to get the coordinates for all desert temples in a given map. Simply input your world seed (or select "random" to get a random one), click "Find Desert Temples", and zoom in and out on the map to see where the temples in your map are located.^{[5]
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- Note: By default, pressing F3 (or Function +F3 on Macs) in-game brings up a menu with your x/y/z coordinates.^{[6]
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Method 2

Method 2 of 2:

Looting a Temple

1
Enter the temple's central chamber. Desert temples can be entered through the small doorway at the front end (between the two square towers.) Inside, you should find a darkened chamber with a diamond-shaped design of orange clay and a single blue clay block in the very center. This design marks the location of the temple's secret treasure.
- If you've found a buried temple, you don't necessarily have to dig down to the door to get in. You can fall through the hole in the top of the pyramid to enter the chamber as well — however, be careful for falling damage!
2
Carefully dig beneath the emblem to avoid the trap. Beneath the central diamond floor design is a 3x3 room that contains four chests which can house valuable items like gold ingots, horse armor, and even rarities like diamonds and enchanted books. However, in the center of this small room is a stone pressure plate connected to nine blocks of TNT. Touch this square and you will most likely lose your life (and the treasure in the room.) The pressure plate is directly beneath the blue clay block. Thus, you will want to carefully dig into the room from a spot to the side of this pressure plate.
- One good way to do this is to dig a set of stairs into the secret chamber starting from a few blocks away — this way, you enter the chamber from the side, rather than from above, making it less likely that you'll fall onto the plate or suffer falling damage.
3
Mine the pressure plate. Once you are in the small treasure, take the time to disable the trap and prevent any tragic accidents. Use a pickaxe to carefully mine the stone pressure plate block in the center of the room without actually touching it. Once the pressure plate is gone, the room should be safe as long as you don't light the TNT manually.
4
Grab the loot! The four treasure chests in the chamber are filled with a selection of items — some common, some rare. Each chest contains 2-6 stacks of items; each stack may have one or several of its item. Some of the items that can be found in desert temples include the following — note that these items are rare and may not appear in every desert temple:^{[7]
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- Iron ingots
- Gold ingots
- Diamonds
- Emeralds
- Saddles
- Iron/Gold/Diamond horse armor
- Enchanted books

Community Q&A

Question

Is there such a thing as a jungle pyramid?

CuzinBob45

Community Answer

Not a jungle pyramid, but a jungle temple. These have treasures just like desert temples. They are made of mossy cobblestone and have traps in them, too.
Question

Can I collect treasure in creative then transfer it to survival?

Community Answer

If you keep the treasure in your inventory or hotbar, it should stay with you when you switch to survival.
Question

Which direction is most likely to get you to the temple first?

Community Answer

There is no specific best direction because the world is generated randomly.

Warnings

Since there is no light inside a desert temple, mobs can spawn, so bring a weapon and armor.

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In rare cases, mobs can spawn in the treasure chamber and step on the pressure plate, destroying the treasure plate before you can reach it. There appears to be no way to prevent this.

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