Desert pyramid

Desert Temples (also known as Pyramids) are structures primarily made of sandstone that occur naturally in deserts. They generally occur at ground level, though they can be hidden by sand dunes on one or more sides, which may cause them to appear buried. Desert temples each contain a hidden chamber that is booby-trapped with 9 blocks of TNT and a pressure plate.

Appearance


Desert temples are constructed from sandstone (regular and chiseled/smooth variants), orange and blue wool, sandstone slabs, and sandstone stairs.

In the center of the temple's ground floor is a single block of blue wool. Underneath this blue wool is a 'booby-trapped' hidden chamber with four chests that can each contain very valuable loot. The trap consists of a stone pressure plate (located directly under the blue wool), connected to a 3x3x1 grid of TNT.



Items in these chests can include emeralds (rare), diamonds, iron ingots, gold ingots, enchanted books, rotten flesh, horse armor, saddles, and bones.

Desert Temples appear on maps as gray, similar to bare stone, but with a distinctive shape.

Chest contents
Each chest contains 2-6 stacks of items, chosen from the following list. Chance listed is per stack, not for the chest as a whole.

Strategy
Desert temples are the most valuable structures the game generates, as each temple contains 4 chests with highly valuable items. The colored wool and 9 blocks of TNT in the trap are also fairly worthwhile loot.

To find a desert temple, you can either look above ground, or search while mining. If you are underground and you run into a large, square formation of sand or sandstone that seems to run the whole height of the map, above it is a desert temple.

When attempting to enter the hidden chamber, the player must take care not to step on the pressure plate at the bottom of the pit, as the plate is connected to 9 blocks of TNT just under the hidden chamber's sandstone floor. The pressure plate is situated directly under the blue wool, but as it is a stone pressure plate, it can not be set off by blocks so it is safe to dig out the floor without activating the TNT trap. The TNT will cause an explosion sufficient to kill most players (and may even destroy the player's drops), as well as destroy all four of the chests, including their loot.

The simplest method of avoiding the trap is to dig down the side and destroy the stone pressure plate by mining it.

Other methods include use of a water bucket to create a stream to swim down and avoid the plate, or dropping sand/gravel down before you. They make great houses if you find them at the start of a new world, just be sure to disarm the TNT trap.

Trivia

 * The desert temple is 21 blocks by 21 blocks
 * The orange symbols found resembles the Ancient Egyptian symbol for Life, an Ankh.
 * Rotten flesh and bones are common items found in chests within temples; it may be suggested that these are the remains of the previous occupants, or possibly mummies buried with their treasure, a common Egyptian practice for pharaohs.
 * A desert temple is constructed from:
 * 3,078 sandstone blocks
 * 184 smooth sandstone blocks
 * 39 chiseled sandstone blocks
 * 54 blocks of orange wool (orange stained clay as of 14w03a)
 * 16 sandstone stairs
 * 9 TNT blocks
 * 4 chests
 * 2 sandstone slabs
 * 1 block of blue wool (blue stained clay as of 14w03a)
 * 1 stone pressure plate
 * It has a rare chance of generating improperly causing some blocks to be lost or added.
 * For a short time in Infdev, huge, solid brick pyramids could be spawned.
 * A desert temple is the first structure where TNT can be found naturally.
 * As there is no light in the lower chamber, mobs can spawn inside and trigger the TNT trap, destroying the chests and loot before any player can reach it. You may not even hear the TNT detonate. The shaft will appear to terminate in a cave, which, if fallen into, will deal more damage than you may be expecting.
 * Because of this you should expect any desert temple that you enter and hang around in/near but don't loot to eventually self-destruct. Disarming the trap should be the first thing you do when you get in.
 * A desert temple will not spawn fully if spawned partially on water. When spawned on lakes, they are only half-generated.
 * Desert temples, jungle temples, and witch huts are caused by the same thing in the code, and the biome tells which one it is.
 * Desert temples and jungle temples have the same frequency of loot.
 * Rarely, desert temples generate in villages, even rarer is the desert temple spawning connected to a house.
 * A desert temple can sometimes generate on the edges of a jungle, as the code to spawn a structure points to a different block than the code to spawn a desert/jungle temple, so if the block the temple points to is outside the jungle it will spawn a desert temple since the code uses an if else statement that will spawn a desert temple if the biome that the temple points to is not a jungle.
 * In real life, pyramids were made of limestone
 * The top hole in the temple's ceiling is almost always generated above ground, so buried temples will be accessible, but fall damage is likely.