Clay in the lousy so-called ‘real world’ is a mineral that forms when teeny-tiny particles of rock and soil meet water. When wet, it's smooth and can easily be shaped into whatever you like - something that our ancestors discovered is very handy indeed!

Ancient human cultures used clay in all sorts of ways - first as pottery, shaping it into pots and bowls and letting it dry in the sun until it hardened. The result was a waterproof vessel that could store grains or liquids - very useful in early agriculture. You can do a similar thing in Minecraft by putting clay balls into a furnace and then shaping the resulting bricks into a pot that can hold flowers. Or a pot that holds nothing, if you hate flowers. But come on, who hates flowers? What’s wrong with you?

Clay is also commonly used as a building material. Some cultures around the world smear clay over frames made of reeds and wood and use the ol’ sun-drying trick to form a tough, waterproof coating. One that keeps a home warm in the winter and cool in the summer! In Minecraft, you can do something similar by baking clay blocks in a furnace to make hardened clay (which can also be occasionally found in the world, and dyed into 16 different colours). In the next major Minecraft update, version 1.12, hardened clay has been renamed terracotta - and you'll be able to smelt it again into a new substance - glazed terracotta - that forms beautiful patterns. Magnificent!