Imagine having a mob stronger than the Ender Dragon and the Wither in Minecraft, only for it to drop a sculk block on dying. Feels rather odd, doesn’t it? Well, it gets worse. The mob we are talking about is the Warden from the Minecraft 1.19 update, and it drops sculk catalyst, which you can anyway find and mine in the Deep Dark biome using the silk touch enchantment. Something smells fishy, right?. That’s not all. The location where the Warden spawns is the same spot as the ancient city portal in Minecraft 1.19. At least that’s what the community feels that structure is. Now, to put an end to all the rumors and theories, we are here to uncover everything around Minecraft’s ancient city portal and the likely addition of a new dimension.

Our guide goes over various sources and speculations around the portal-like structure in the ancient city. While doing so, we also discredit the rumors that don’t make sense or are just plain unreliable. You can use the table below to read the theories that interest you the most.

  • Is There a Portal in the Ancient City?Minecraft Ancient City Portal: Speculations

  • Reference to Portal in SnapshotsMusic Disc 5: Mysterious Sounds!?Warden Mob is a GuardThe Aether DimensionWill We Get a New Dimension in Minecraft 1.20 Update?

  • Reference to Portal in SnapshotsMusic Disc 5: Mysterious Sounds!?Warden Mob is a GuardThe Aether Dimension

Is There a Portal in the Ancient City?

The ancient city that spawns in the deep dark biome of Minecraft has multiple smaller structures. Some of the structures look like temples, whereas others include hallways, ruined structures, and gateways. But what stands out the most to Minecraft players is the huge hollow structure that looks like a portal and a window in the center of the ancient city.

Moreover, this structure’s window area is made up of reinforced deep slate blocks. Similar to the blocks that make the End portal in the game, you can’t mine and get the reinforced deep slate blocks. If you try to break the block, it takes over 80 seconds, making it 10 times stronger than the strongest block in the game, i.e. obsidian. Following the trend, obsidian is also a portal block, which you can use to make the Nether portal in Minecraft. Portal or not, these properties definitely point towards an ampler purpose of reinforced deep slate blocks.

Minecraft Ancient City Portal: Speculations

Reference to Portal in Snapshots

The Minecraft snapshot 22W13A was the first beta release that brought Ancient cities to the game. Interestingly, the Ancient city in that snapshot also had a mini version of the city center structure. It was the exact replica of this structure, just much smaller in size.

Almost all music discs in Minecraft are made up of in-game sounds or general music. But the new music disc 5 added in the Minecraft 1.19 update is slightly different. It begins with the sound of static. Then, you can hear the sound of someone walking, blocks being broken, the Warden, and susurrating in quick succession. These sounds are followed by a loud metallic click, which sounds similar to flint & steel used to light the Nether portal in Minecraft.

According to some speculations, instead of a portal to another world, this music disc sounds like an entrance that leads a monstrous boss into our world. And seeing the side of the portal, I surely don’t want to find out what can come out of it.

The term “warden” literally means “guard” or “protector”. So, it would make sense that the presence of the newly added mob Warden in the Ancient city means it is there to protect something. To be fair, the loot in the Ancient city is amazing. But the Warden is not a boss mob and still stronger than existing boss mobs in the game. Such power isn’t justified for the kind of loot you find in these cities.

Also, as mentioned earlier, if you defeat the Warden, the mob only drops sculk catalyst, which is one of the many types of sculk blocks in Minecraft 1.19. However, you can obtain the sculk blocks easily with the silk touch enchantment. So yes, at the end of the day, killing the Warden feels useless.

Brandon Pearce, aka Kingbdoz, is a popular Minecraft Gameplay Developer at Mojang. But before he joined their team in 2020, he was the face behind the popular Aether mod. This mod added a new dimension to the game. And it became so famous that people started trying to make Aether portal even in the vanilla game, assuming it to be an actual feature.

So, if the developer plans to use Pearce’s skills in mod development, a dimension could definitely be on the cards and would make the most sense. Though, it’s worth noting that even he hasn’t said anything about the new update. But his mysterious tweets keep coming.

The last time Minecraft’s developer officially talked about a new dimension, they claimed to improve existing biomes and dimensions in the game first. With revamped biomes finally making their way to the game, we don’t think that the chances of a new dimension are high in the Minecraft 1.20 update. But you can use our linked guide to find other speculated features that might actually make it into the game.