Minecraft: Lockdown Lesson Recreates Ancient Island Tomb
Minecraft: Lockdown lesson recreates an ancient island tomb by George Herd BBC News
Find an archaeologist, a bored girl in school who is suffering from coronavirus lockdown, and a common interest in exploring ancient tombs.
The result? One of Wales the most important Bronze Age sites recreated - in the video game Minecraft.
It is the result of Dr Ben Edwards, from Wrexham and his daughter Bella 11.
Their models of Bryncelli Ddu on Anglesey are now being shared with classrooms across the world.
The models can be loaded into the block-building universe of Minecraft and explored to find out more about the website and Neolithic life and art.
The burial mound dates back 5 000 years, and is the so-called "passage tomb" which's entrance is perfectly aligned with the sun's rays at dawn on the solstice of summer.
Recent excavations at the site, including those by the Manchester Metropolitan University archaeologist Dr Edwards himself, have revealed that the burial chamber was constructed as a "henge".
Similar to Stonehenge It was a ritual enclosure consisting of a bank that was surrounded by an inner ditch, which was enclosed by upright stones.
Dr Edwards utilized these digs along with the work of researchers from the University of Central Lancashire, Wales the historical environment service Cadw to carefully recreate Bryn Celli Ddu for the video game.
It was then integrated into the educational edition of Minecraft that is used around the globe to teach lessons in everything from chemistry to computer programming.
You can now add ancient Welsh history to that list.
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"I was aware that Bella had the education version of Minecraft at her school in Wrexham and I had it at my university.
Dr Edwards who worked on various computer models of Bryn Celli Ddu said that "So it was always on my mind for a while..."
"It was not a top priority, but then it's lockdown time, it's the Easter holiday, and you are homeschooling.
"I just told Bella"Should we take a crack at this?'"
The game is renowned for being able to construct nearly anything from graphic blocks, creating massive playgrounds and worlds.
While it may appear to be a game, Dr Edwards was serious about his method of Bryn Celli Ddu and used real-world mapping data to create the Minecraft landscapes.
It includes the tomb itself as it might have appeared in the Bronze Age, and alongside it, burial mounds and pits have been discovered in the past few years.
The game also features rock art by Bryn Celli Ddu, as an illustration of a Neolithic home.
According to Dr Edwards, the hardest thing to build was not the burial mounds but the house.
He said, "It was planting trees."
Each one of them had to be "planted" by Bella and her dad in order to be part of the Minecraft world.
Dr. Edwards admitted that Bella needed to teach her how to do a variety of things because she uses it more frequently than I do.
In the end, she was in favor of the final version, and said it was "very real".
Her father told her, "And she knows because she used to go down to the excavations also."
Dr. Ffion Reynolds from Cadw said that it was children like Bella who would most benefit from the Minecraft model.
Dr Reynolds said, "We were looking at innovative ways to provide people with an online experience of Bryncelli Ddu" and he'd normally be spending the summer months giving guided tours through the excavations to schools in the area.
"This was a way to continue our relationship with these schools and to provide them with a means to 'visit' the site online."
Coronavirus restrictions have led to Cadw's facilities in Wales being closed to the public including Bryn Celli Ddu.
It also meant that for the first year in years, people who celebrate the solstice could not be at the burial site in order to witness the dawn phenomenon there.
Dr Reynolds said sunrise view was possible through 360-degree videography.
She said that Cadw hopes to make the footage accessible in the near future and make the site accessible to the public.
In the meantime anyone with an internet connection at school or home can now play Minecraft digitally - in safety.
The Bryn Celli Ddu Minecraft world is free to download the Minecraft Education version from Hwb - the Welsh Government's teaching resource website as well as from the Manchester Centre for Public History and Heritage.
For those looking for an experience that is more serious, Dr Andrews and his coworkers have created an augmented-reality application for Apple devices that can help guide users around the actual site when it reopens.
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