Buried Treasure: Exact Dig Spots and Loot

Why bother with buried treasure

One reason: the Heart of the Sea. It's in every buried treasure chest, it's the only way to get one, and with eight nautilus shells it crafts a conduit. A conduit gives you water breathing, night vision underwater and fast mining in a big radius, which is the difference between suffering through an ocean monument and actually enjoying it.

The usual route is to find a shipwreck, hope the map chest survived, then follow the map's X. That works, but it's two searches instead of one. Buried treasure placement only depends on the seed and the beach biomes, so the buried treasure finder can list every chest and you just walk to the nearest.

Java and Bedrock are not the same

Both editions test beach chunks one at a time, but the details differ more than people expect. We ran five seeds over a 6,000×6,000 area on both editions and checked how many chests turned up and where they land inside their chunks.

That second row is the big one. Bedrock worlds have roughly ten times as much buried treasure. On Bedrock you'll usually find a chest within a few hundred blocks of spawn if there's any coast nearby; on Java it can be a real trip. Make sure the edition is set right before you read any coordinates: a Java position in a Bedrock world (or the other way round) points at a random patch of sand.

The nearest chest on five seeds

Look at the Java X and Z values: every one ends on 9 within its chunk (−151 = −10 × 16 + 9, 297 = 18 × 16 + 9). Bedrock values all end on 8. If someone gives you a Java treasure coordinate that doesn't fit, it's a typo or a guess.

Seed −1234567890123 is the odd one: spawn is inland on both editions and the closest chest is about 900 to 1,000 blocks out. If a coastal start matters to you, check the treasure layer before you commit to a seed.

What's in the chest in 26.3

On Java the loot is fixed by the seed as soon as the chunk generates, and the finder replays it. We opened every chest within 3,000 blocks of spawn on the five seeds above, 181 in total, and tallied it up.

So a little better than a coin flip for diamonds, and usually just one or two. The nicer surprise in 26.3 is nautilus armour, which turned up in about one chest in five. Seed 8675309123456789's chest at −151, −7 has iron nautilus armour along with two diamonds and ten gold, and seed 0's chest at 9, −343 has four diamonds.

Digging it up

1. Turn on coordinates (F3 on Java, Show Coordinates in Bedrock's world settings) and walk to the marker's X and Z.
2. On Java, stand exactly on that column. Look down, check the block position in F3, and shuffle until both numbers match.
3. Dig straight down. The chest is usually only a few blocks under the surface, under sand, gravel or sandstone.
4. On Bedrock, if the chest isn't there after six or seven blocks, dig out a 3×3 around the column. The marker is right most of the time, but not always.

Gravel is the annoying part. Beaches often have a layer of it, and when you break the block under it the whole column drops on your head. Keep a torch in your off-hand slot and place it under falling gravel to break it, or just dig the column next to the chest and break in sideways.

Some chests sit right at the waterline or under a flooded bit of beach. You'll be digging into water, so a door or a sign placed in front of your face gives you an air pocket, and a drowned or two is normal. The water breathing potion in the chest only helps after you've found it.

When the treasure is worth the trip

Early on, a chest within 500 blocks is easily worth an evening: iron, gold, food and often a diamond or two, plus a Heart of the Sea you can bank for later. Further out, plan it as part of an ocean trip instead. Treasure, shipwrecks and ocean ruins tend to share coastlines, and the finder can show them together, so one boat ride can pick up a treasure map you don't need, the supply chest's armour trim, and the chest itself.

If you only want the conduit, remember the other half: eight nautilus shells. Drowned sometimes hold one, fishing has a small chance, and wandering traders sell them. The prismarine frame needs at least 16 blocks, which the nearest ocean monument provides in bulk.