Stardew Valley - Artifacts

Artifacts are dug out of worm casts, dropped by monsters and pulled from chests. Gunther takes them for the museum, where they tell the valley's history.

Overview

Artifacts are the valley's buried history, and the branch exists mainly to fill one room. Gunther's collection in the Museum has a slot for every one of them, and the collection is the only reason most of them are worth picking up, since a great many sell for less than a handful of parsnips. The reward for filling those slots, though, is some of the best value in the game: seed packets a first-year farm could never afford, a key to the sewers, a Warp Totem supply, and finally a stardrop.

Nearly all of them come out of the ground. An Artifact Spot looks like three worms wriggling out of the soil, and a single swing of the hoe opens it. The spots are scattered across almost every outdoor map, and each map has its own list of what can appear there, which is why a complete collection means walking the whole valley rather than digging one favourite field. A spot is not guaranteed to give an artifact at all: one dig in five hands over a lost book instead, and that happens everywhere except on the farm itself.

The odds inside a spot are stranger than the listed percentages suggest. The game works down its list in order and stops at the first item that passes its own roll, so an artifact low on the list can only appear when everything above it has already failed. The practical effect is that the common finds stay common and the rare ones are rarer than their numbers imply, which is why the last few slots in the collection tend to take a year or more.

Groups

The largest group is the regional one, and it is the reason the collection is really a tour. The beach holds the seaside pieces, worn glass and Dried Starfish and a pirate anchor. Cindersap Forest, the Mountain and the Bus Stop share the primitive tools and the old instruments. Pelican Town's streets give up domestic clutter, and the farm itself turns up the things previous owners dropped, a Chicken Statue and a cowboy's spur. The Calico Desert is the only place that yields its golden pieces, which is why a stalled collection often just means the bus is still broken.

The dwarvish group comes from underground rather than from spots. The four lettered scrolls drop from monsters and turn up when tilling the soil of the mines, and the helm and the gadget come out of geodes. The scrolls are the only group with a reward that depends on having all four of them.

The bone group is the one with a second life. Fossils, prehistoric pieces and skeletal fragments are found in artifact spots, dropped by the skull-headed monsters and the Pepper Rex, and mined out of the bone nodes at the island dig site. Once the Museum has its copy, every spare one can be fed into a bone Mill for fertiliser.

The last group is a pair of oddities. The two strange dolls are the most valuable artifacts in the game and the least likely to be dug up by accident, and the only reliable way to get them is to solve the two Secret Notes that point at where they are buried.

Locations

Besides the hoe, there are six other routes in. Tilling the bare soil inside the mines and the Skull Cavern produces artifacts and Lost Books on any floor, and a few items appear only that way. Monsters drop the Dwarf Scrolls and the Rare Disc. Fishing treasure chests carry a wide spread of artifacts and are the main reason a dedicated angler finishes the collection early. Geodes opened at the blacksmith or in a home crusher hold the dwarvish pieces and the Ancient Drum. Artifact troves, cracked open the same way, hold almost the whole catalogue at a flat chance each. Bone nodes at the island dig site hold the fossils.

Two side doors are easy to forget. A dog at maximum friendship digs up artifacts as presents, and Secret Notes point directly at buried items for anyone carrying the Magnifying Glass.

Uses

Donation comes first, and the Museum pays out on three separate counters. One tracks artifacts alone, and a run of them brings a Skeleton Statue and a rarecrow. One tracks the total of artifacts and minerals together, and that is the counter behind the seed packets, the paintings, the Rusty Key to the sewers and the stardrop at the very end. The third is a set of named combinations: the Ancient Drum and the Bone Flute each unlock a music block, the Chicken Statue returns as furniture, the four Dwarf Scrolls together unlock the translation guide that makes the dwarf merchant comprehensible, the prehistoric bones assemble into a Sloth Skeleton, and the Rare Disc with the Dwarf Gadget earns a painting.

Several artifacts then have jobs outside the case. An Ancient Seed donated once unlocks the recipe for seed packs, and the fruit that grows from them is the most profitable thing a Greenhouse can hold. A Dwarf Gadget is the part that makes a Farm Computer. A Dinosaur Egg hatches a dinosaur in an incubator or becomes the best mayonnaise in the game. An anchor and an Ancient Sword can be dropped into a Fish Tank as decoration, and a Fish Pond will sometimes ask for a Dried Starfish, a Golden Relic or one of the first three Dwarf Scrolls.

As gifts they are narrow. Penny and the Dwarf like all of them, which makes a bag of spare bones a cheap way to raise either. Jas loves the Ancient Doll and both strange dolls. Abigail likes the Ancient Sword and the Bone Flute. Everyone else is unimpressed. Every artifact can also go into the Sewing Machine, which gives the whole branch a use once the Museum is full.

Prices

Most of the branch is near worthless at the bin, and the four Dwarf Scrolls are famously worth a single coin each. The golden pieces from the desert and the two strange dolls are the exceptions worth shipping once the Museum has its copy.

The one thing that changes this picture is the appraisal book found in Artifact Troves, which trebles what every artifact fetches. After reading it a trove full of bones becomes a reasonable day's pay, and a spare Dinosaur Egg is worth more sold raw than it is turned into mayonnaise.

Strategy

Dig every spot in sight, always, even on a crossing that was meant to be quick. A spot costs one swing and a sliver of energy, it may hold the artifact that has been missing for a year, and it may hold a lost book for the library instead.

Make Winter the season for this branch. The fields stand empty, the ground is clearer, and the spots are easier to pick out against the snow. A winter morning spent walking the forest, the mountain and the town with a hoe in hand covers more of the collection than a whole Summer of farming does.

Donate before selling, and keep one of everything until the slot is filled. The Museum takes one copy and the rest are free to ship, but an artifact sold in the first week cannot be recovered except by digging it again.

Finally, let the other systems feed this one. A week of fishing fills treasure chests, a week in the mines fills geodes and drops scrolls, and a trip to the island dig site fills the bone group. Choosing the week's work by which part of the collection is still thin is the cheapest way to close it.

Notes

The Museum's own geode service matters here too, since the blacksmith will open geodes one at a time while a Geode Crusher at home works through a whole stack overnight.

Spots on the farm behave slightly differently from the rest. They always hand over an artifact rather than a lost book, and the farm keeps its own short list of finds, with the Chicken Statue and the Rusty Spur appearing at unusually generous odds.

The Dwarf himself is only reachable once all four scrolls are in the case, which makes that combination the most important donation in the branch for anyone who wants to buy from him or from his counterpart in the Volcano Dungeon.

All Artifacts

Every entry in this group, with its key details.

Name	Image	Price
Amphibian Fossil		150g
Anchor		100g
Ancient Doll		60g
Ancient Drum		100g
Ancient Seed		5g
Ancient Sword		100g
Arrowhead		40g
Bone Flute		100g
Chewing Stick		50g
Chicken Statue		50g
Chipped Amphora		40g
Dried Starfish		40g
Dwarf Gadget		200g
Dwarf Scroll I		1g
Dwarf Scroll II		1g
Dwarf Scroll III		1g
Dwarf Scroll IV		1g
Dwarvish Helm		100g
Elvish Jewelry		200g
Glass Shards		20g
Golden Mask		500g
Golden Relic		250g
Nautilus Fossil		80g
Ornamental Fan		300g
Palm Fossil		100g
Prehistoric Handaxe		50g
Prehistoric Rib		100g
Prehistoric Scapula		100g
Prehistoric Skull		100g
Prehistoric Tibia		100g
Prehistoric Tool		50g
Prehistoric Vertebra		100g
Rare Disc		300g
Rusty Cog		25g
Rusty Spoon		25g
Rusty Spur		25g
Skeletal Hand		100g
Skeletal Tail		100g
Strange Doll (green)		1000g
Strange Doll (yellow)		1000g
Trilobite		50g