How to Find and Raid an Ocean Monument in Minecraft

An ocean monument is Minecraft's underwater raid: a huge prismarine pyramid crawling with laser-firing guardians, guarded by three elder guardians who make mining almost impossible until they are dead. It is dangerous, disorienting, and absolutely worth it for the sponges and gold inside. Here is how to find one and strip it clean.

How to Find an Ocean Monument

Monuments only generate in deep ocean biomes, sitting on the ocean floor. You have four realistic ways to track one down:

• Ocean explorer map: the reliable route. A journeyman cartographer villager sells one for emeralds and a compass; the map marks the nearest monument with a small icon, and you just sail toward it.
• Exploring by boat: sail deep ocean at night or with Night Vision and watch the seafloor — the pale pyramid and its guardian swarm give it away.
• Commands: on worlds with cheats enabled, /locate structure minecraft:monument gives exact coordinates.
• Seed tools: sites like ChunkBase can show monument locations for your seed.

Gear You Actually Need

Do not swim down in iron armor and hope. Guardians fire a charging laser beam that hits hard and cannot be dodged once locked — it only breaks when you break line of sight behind blocks. Pack Water Breathing and Night Vision potions (several of each), a helmet with Respiration and Aqua Affinity, boots with Depth Strider, a trident with Impaling V if you have one, a good sword, a shield, and doors — placing a door underwater creates a pocket of air you can breathe in (Java). Bring milk, too: a bucket of milk removes the Mining Fatigue curse the moment an elder guardian applies it, though they will simply reapply it while they live.

Inside the Monument

Every monument has the same rough layout. The main entrance is under the front arch. Inside is a maze of prismarine rooms of different sizes, and somewhere in the structure are its three elder guardians — bigger, grey versions of the normal guardian. One sits in each wing room and one at the top center of the monument. Elder guardians are the priority targets: while even one lives, Mining Fatigue keeps returning, and you cannot mine your way anywhere. Fight them one at a time, use pillars and corners to break their beams, and eat between engagements.

The Loot

There are no chests in a monument — the treasure is built into the structure itself. Most monuments contain one or two sponge rooms, with ceilings of wet sponge you can dry in a furnace and reuse forever for draining water. At the monument's core sits a 2×2×2 cube of gold blocks hidden inside dark prismarine — eight solid gold blocks, free. The elder guardians themselves drop wet sponge and can drop the Tide armor trim. Beyond that, the whole building is a prismarine quarry: once the elders are dead, you can dismantle the monument for thousands of blocks, or drain it entirely and turn it into a guardian farm, since guardians keep spawning in the monument's footprint forever.

Raiding Tips

• Mark your entry route with glowstone or sea lanterns — the interior is a genuine maze.
• Conduits are the endgame answer: a powered conduit gives you water breathing, night vision and faster mining in its radius.
• Guardians drop prismarine shards and crystals, plus fish — handy for crafting more sea lanterns as you go.
• Never fight an elder guardian in an open room. Corners are your best armor.