Minecraft’s latest Snapshot is out to give players a preview of what’s coming to the game next, and for those who’ve been keeping up with these sorts of early looks recently, you’ll know that means more content related to the game’s upcoming archeology features. These features include combing through desert areas with brushes to gather pottery shards and other objects of interest, Mojang said recently back when the big feature was first announced. One of those worthwhile finds – the pottery shards – has now been updated in the latest Snapshot after feedback from an actual archeologist pointed out that Minecraft didn’t have things 100% right as far as that term was concerned.
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The notes for the latest Snapshot address the pottery shards situation with a brief line about the matter: “Your voices were heard, we’re giving you Sherds!” the title of the Snapshot post on Reddit said. Within the actual notes, a bit more context was provided.
“All Pottery Shards has been renamed to Pottery Sherds,” the notes said.
At a glance, that phrasing may look like there’s some inside joke you’re not privy to regarding why the “Shards” became “Sherds,” but as players in the comments pointed out, there’s actually an interesting reason behind the change. Over on YouTube, the ArchaeoPlays channel shared a video two weeks ago featuring a review of Minecraft’s new archeology features. In the video, archeologist Heather Christie pointed out that the correct term Minecraft should be using in its game was actually “sherds” as opposed to “shards” which has been used since the feature was first detailed earlier in the year.
“I know it’s like, the smallest of changes, and probably a bit nit-picky, but I’m really sorry to say that ‘pottery shard’ is not a term that archeologists use,” they said in their video. “We call pieces of pottery ‘potsherds,’ ‘sherds,’ or ‘pottery sherds,’ all with an ‘e.’ Shards, in archeology, are pieces of glass vessels or glass windows. It’s a really minor thing, but again, if people are learning this term as associated with archeology, for the difference of a single letter, it’d be great to use the actual term that archeologists use.”
After that video was published, people started sharing it around with many of them (myself included) having learned for the first time that a “sherd” is not only a thing that exists but is also something that’s much more accurate in this context. While the Minecraft Snapshot post didn’t attribute anyone specifically as the reason for this change, it seems the video from the ArchaeoPlays channel and the ensuing conversation about the topic inspired Mojang to adjust the term.
Minecraft’s big archeology feature will release in the 1.20 update, though that update does not yet have a set release date.
