Minecraft: The Great Ziggurat of Tharnz

This project is my second and last venture to Minecraft insanity, now presenting a 64 blocks high pyramid structure with an ancient mausoleum inside, majestically named The Great Ziggurat of Tharnz. As a pop-culture reference, there's also almost functional Stargate outside ;)

"Ziggurats (Akkadian ziqqurat, D-stem of zaqāru "to build on a raised area") were massive structures built in the ancient Mesopotamian valley and western Iranian plateau, having the form of a terraced step pyramid of successively receding stories or levels." -- Wikipedia.


The complete structure is made by hand with hand collected and crafted items in survival multiplayer.

Estimated build time is difficult to say as I worked on the design and structure on several different occasions, span on a timeline of several months. At least several hundred of hours were spent on material mining, terraforming and construction anyway.

Alas, the project is still unfinished, but as I have already lost my interest on Minecraft, I decided to record the video of it as a memory, before the multiplayer server where the ziggurat was build has a map reset.

The exterior of the pyramid structure and the mausoleum are finished, but the interior of the mausoleum is still largely unfinished. There were supposed to be several different levels of whole rooms inside for instance, not just those platforms there are now.


What are almost completely missing from the original design are the subterranean structures underneath the mausoleum. There was supposed be a hidden second underground pyramid structure in similar design as the Ziggurat city they are planning to build in Dubai, accessible through the sarcophagus in the middle of the mausoleum. What there is is a ladder passage to the bedrock level where there's already roughly 100x100 blocks width and 7 blocks high empty hand mined space for the bottom of the underground pyramid structure, but it isn't such an interesting sight on its unfinished form and such isn't presented on the video.


The "greater purpose" of the whole site originally was to arrange treasure hunting competitions for other players on the server. There was supposed to be several hidden rooms and sections on the site (which few are already finished and some even presented on the video) along with chests filled with treasures. That's why there are already several dozen chests all around the site. Not every chest was meant to contain treasure though and most easily accessible chests were meant just to fool the competitors while the real treasures would have been in less obvious places.

Although much is still missing from the site, it still reached finishing level I am happily to present to other people. Hope you enjoyed the sights as much as I enjoyed building them, but all good things must come to an end and after 6 months of playing Minecraft basically every day, it's time for me to move forward to new games and challenges.

So, no use to subscribe! I might upload new gaming videos one day on this account, but they aren't going to be Minecraft related, so it's no use to subscribe if you want more Minecraft videos.

I thank Notch, my supporters and fellow multiplayer Minecraft gamers humbly and leave these two Youtube videos as a memory of what I accomplished. See you on the other side!


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------­----------
First audio track: "Opala" by Harold Faltermeyer (Two Worlds OST)
Second audio track: "Ruinfields" by Kai Rosenkranz (Gothic 3 OST)

Category:

Gaming

Tags:

• Minecraft
• pyramid
• ziggurat
• mausoleum
• Murocraft
• mega project
• mega build
• stargate

[cilibinarii]

This is absolutely stunning.. wow :O just a little note: you called it a ziggurat, which is Sumerian, but included the ankh symbol, which is Egyptian ^^ so it would be an egyptian ziggurat i guess ^^

[Tharnzz]

@cilibinarii I was expecting that someone would mention about this ;) In fact, the whole structure is at it's basics "just a pyramid". The Great Ziggurat of Tharnz was just the name of the whole project. As I said in the video description, there was supposed to be a second underground pyramid structure underneath the mausoleum in Dubai's Ziggurat design. This would have made the whole project "more than just a pyramid", hence the more majestic name :)

[clockworkdreams]

actually, ill just ask a few questions as they come to me, it appears that you have a glass inner casing to the ziggurat to hold the sand up. are there torchlines in the corner of the casing between the sand and glass?? and is it to hold the form of the outer casing or for lighting or decoration?

[Tharnzz]

@clockworkdreams There are two layers on the pyramid shell; the outer shell is made with sand and inner with glass, there's no extra space between these two layers. There's a line of stone blocks two blocks away from the corner, and the midsection of the pyramid sides. They are there for some contrast and to hold the torches in place - you can't place torches on glass.

[TiiRaNNiiTwii]

You have created one of the most amazing and breathtaking architectural projects in the history of Minecraft. The only thing that can compare to this is your 121 Blocks High Tower. Equally as stunning. All I can say is, good job. No one will be able to match this.

[SlippyMcSlipknot]

wow. NERDGASM

[JaySolo100]

Notch disliked this. 

[jannickvb352]

Omg thats freakin amazing

[NightFury299]

Beautiful! :D

[cilibinarii]

@Tharnzz Ah I see :) Well it certainly sounds more majestic, simply "pyramid" is so overdone :p

[clockworkdreams]

@Tharnzz

as well many of the secret rooms of your masoleum are nigh impossible to replicate from this video or difficult to sketch out

will need to replace with original designs.

Would like insight if you have it

[clockworkdreams]

@Tharnzz

other key differences in the current design are

*widened walkway around the pyramid (2 blocks wider?)

*widened middle plaza on the promenade out to the gate plaza for garden space

*will be building four promenades

*likely to use a different facade on internal structure

*further inland, needs more landscaping work to mesh better

*longer walkways to hit nearby water features

*will need to add water features

[clockworkdreams]

@Tharnzz

almost done with an all mined materials group project pyramid with an outer casing in the same format as yours. ours uses sandstone, though it still has the glass where the water will flow. may rework closer to your design using sand and glass.