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Minecraft Lockdown Lesson Recreates Ancient Island Tomb

Minecraft Lockdown lesson recreates an ancient island tombs by George Herd BBC News



Consider an archaeologist, bored girl in school who is suffering from coronavirus lockdown, and an interest in exploring ancient tombs.



The result? The video game Minecraft has recreated one of Wales the most important Bronze Age sites.



It is Dr Ben Edwards from Wrexham and his daughter Bella who have done it.



They are sharing their models of Anglesey's Bryn Celli Ddu with classrooms all over the globe.



The models can be loaded into the block-building world of Minecraft and explored to find out more about the website and Neolithic life and art.



The burial mound dates back approximately 5,000 years. Its known as the "passage Tomb" is perfectly aligned with the sun's rising on summer solstice.



Recent excavations at the site, including those conducted by Dr. Edwards, Manchester Metropolitan University archaeologist, showed that the burial chamber was constructed as"henge" "henge".



This was similar to Stonehenge and consisted of a bank surrounding an internal ditch, which was enclosed in a circle with upright stones.



Dr Edwards has used those digs, in conjunction with researchers from the University of Central Lancashire and Wales the historic environment service Cadw to meticulously recreate Bryn Celli Ddu in the video game.



It was then incorporated in the educational version of Minecraft, which is used across the globe to teach lessons in everything from chemistry to computer coding.



You can now add the ancient Welsh history to the list.



From cromlechs and cairns to cromlech Wales ancient burial sites



History of the world: The Bryn Celli Ddu stone



Why did the prehistoric era build so many hill forts



BBC Radio 3: New Generation Thinkers' Seren Griffiths on Bryn Celli Ddu



"I was aware that Bella had access to the educational version of Minecraft at her school, close to Wrexham and I also had access to it at my university.



"So it was always at the back of my head for a while, to try something with Minecraft," said Dr Edwards who has worked on other more mature computer models of Bryn Celli Ddu in the past.



"It wasn't a major priority, but then it's lockdown, it is the Easter holidays, so you are homeschooling.



"I just said to Bella"Should you give it a an attempt at this?'"



The game is famous for players being able to build almost anything out of blocks of graphics, creating huge worlds and playgrounds.



Though it may be a game, Dr Edwards took the approach to Bryn Celli Ddu seriously, and employed actual geographical mapping data to recreate the landscape of Minecraft models.



It includes the actual tomb as it appeared in the Bronze Age and other burial mounds or pits discovered in recent years.



The game also features rock art by Bryn Celli Ddu, as also a model of an Neolithic home.



According to Dr. Edwards, the hardest thing to construct was not the burial mounds, but the house.



"It was planting the trees," he said.



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 many things because she uses it more frequently than I.



In the end, she was in favour of the final version, and said it was "very real".



"And she is aware, as she used to go down to the excavations too," her father added.



Dr Ffion Reynolds, of Cadw, said it was exactly children such as Bella who would benefit from playing with the Minecraft model.



"We were looking for new ways to provide people with an experience in digital form of Bryn Celli Ddu," Dr. Reynolds who will typically be spending the summer months giving guided tours of the excavations to schools from the area.



"This was an opportunity to maintain our relationship with these schools, and offer them a way to 'visit' the website online."
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Coronavirus restrictions mean that Cadw's sites across Wales have been closed to the public, including Bryn Celli Ddu.



It also meant that for the first year in a long time, those who celebrated the solstice of summer couldn't be at the burial site in order to witness the sunrise phenomenon on the mound.



"However it did let us to access a special camera crew, and we have been able to capture the sunrise in the area using 360-degree filming," Dr Reynolds added.



She said that Cadw hopes to make the footage accessible in the near future, and open the site again to the public.



Those who have access to Minecraft at home or at school can now access the Minecraft website online - in complete safety.



The Bryn Celli Du Minecraft world is free to download from Hwb the Welsh Government's teaching resource site. Also available from the Manchester Centre for Public History and Heritage.



If you're looking for a more serious experience, Dr Andrews and his team are behind an augmented reality app available for Apple devices, which can help users navigate the site - once it reopens.



New excavations at a the site of a prehistoric burial



15 June 2019



New discovery made at ancient tomb



23 June 2017



Around the BBC



BBC Radio 3: New Generation Thinkers



Bryn Celli Ddu


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