New Minecraft world of Bryn Celli Ddu offers students virtual tour of prehistoric landscape.

Aerial view showing the real-world contours & river chanel, Goove Ware pits bottom left (Left). The entrance to the reconstructed Bryn Celli Ddu (Right).

Bryn Celli Ddu Screenshot (left). Neolithic rock art panels set into the rock outcrop near Bryn Celli Ddu (Right).

For one of Anglesey’s most famous prehistoric landmarks, archaeologists - as part of the Bryn Celli Ddu public archaeology landscape project - have released a new Minecraft world of the site, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

Aerial shot of Bryn Celli Ddu. Image: Adam Stanford Aerial Cam

Who needs Google Street View when you can explore the renowned passage tomb via Minecraft? In a truly interactive twist on the virtual tour, the virtual version of Bryn Celli Ddu will allow young people to explore one of the most impressive Neolithic burial monuments in the British Isles: a passage tomb, consisting of a stone-built passage into an artificial earth mound, which terminates in a burial chamber. The passage tomb was used as a location for burial around 3,000 BC, but the site had a much longer history, and exists in a landscape replete with evidence for prehistoric ritual activity.

The famous Welsh passage tomb might not be as recognisable as Stonehenge, but it possesses a similar alignment where the stones line up with the sun on the longest day of summer. By building the long passage at Bryn Celli Ddu, the sun can creep along it into the far reaches of the inner chamber, an atmospheric moment that many never forget.

Bryn Celli Ddu at the Summer Solstice. Image: Adam Stanford

Of absolutely central importance to the public archaeology project over the course of the last five years has been the involvement of the local community in all project research work. Every year, local volunteers have been part of the excavations; open days have taken place; along with school visits and museum exhibitions. However, due to the coronavirus pandemic, the project was forced to cancel all excavation, survey and outreach work for the 2020 season. Whilst this was a great shame, it provided the opportunity for more imaginative ways of connecting people with the prehistoric past.

Bryn Celli Ddu at dusk. Image: Adam Stanford

The new Bryn Celli Ddu Minecraft experience has now been made available by The Welsh Government, through its Hwb Cymru school's portal, which provides free access for school children to the Education Edition of Minecraft. Schools across Wales, and the UK, can now download the world onto their Education Editions of Minecraft and allow pupils to access the experience.

Aerial view of 2016 excavation of the Bronze Age cairn with Bryn Celli Ddu beyond. Image: Adam Stanford Aerial Cam

The world takes the viewer on a journey through the Bryn Celli Ddu landscape, with its main passage tomb, the cairn cemetery, rock art panels and Neolithic house based on evidence at Llanfaethu.

The Minecraft Experience is available for all versions of Minecraft but check which one you are using before you download.

The Bryn Celli Ddu landscape project is led by the Welsh Government's historic environment service, Cadw and Manchester Metropolitan University.

click here to read more about the Bryn Celli Ddu landscape project

Click here to read more about the Bryn Celli Ddu CGI film