Updated 25 October 2026. Facts on this page come from minecraft.wiki, minecraft.net and the live Artemis PvP server; sources are listed at the bottom.
Brush in Minecraft: How to Get It and Uses
A brush is the archaeology tool. Use it on suspicious sand or suspicious gravel to slowly uncover an item, such as pottery sherds or rare loot, and the block turns into normal sand or gravel. Brushing an armadillo gives an armadillo scute.
How do you get a brush?
Craft it from a feather, a copper ingot and a stick, stacked in a column. Find suspicious blocks in desert pyramids, desert wells, ocean ruins and trail ruins.
What is it used for?
- Excavating suspicious sand and gravel
- Getting armadillo scutes without hurting armadillos
- Finding pottery sherds and armor trims
- Finding sniffer eggs in warm ocean ruins
More about it
Each brushed suspicious block costs 1 durability, and each armadillo costs 16. If you stop brushing halfway, the block slowly goes back to its hidden state. Brushing any other block only plays the animation and does no damage. Archaeology arrived in the 1.20 Trails & Tales update. Suspicious sand appears in desert pyramids, desert wells and warm ocean ruins, and suspicious gravel in trail ruins and cold ocean ruins. Brushes can take Unbreaking and Mending.
Tip
Brush slowly and do not mine suspicious blocks with a pickaxe: breaking them destroys the loot.
Items and recipes
Most items stack to 64 in one inventory slot; tools, armor, potions and a few others do not stack at all. The recipe book in your crafting screen shows every recipe you have unlocked, and picking up a new item unlocks the recipes that use it. In Creative mode every item is in the creative inventory, and with cheats on the /give command hands you any item by its ID. Items you drop disappear after 5 minutes on the ground, so pick up rare drops quickly. See crafting and archaeology.
Does ArtemisPvP have custom items?
Frequently asked questions
What does a brush do?
It uncovers items from suspicious sand and gravel, and gets scutes from armadillos.
Sources
Every fact on this page was checked against these pages; the wording is ours.