Part of the Exploration & Endgame series:

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Planetary Points of Interest: The full structure catalogue.

Quick Answer

Four site types make up the archaeology layer: monoliths, ancient plaques, ancient ruins (the buried dig sites), and Traveller graves.
The Planetary Chart (ancient artifact site) finds plaques, monoliths and ruins. The separate Artifact Chart (dig site cartographic data) finds dig sites only.
Monolith outcomes turn on whether you can read the question. Correct answers give words, blueprints, items, healing and standing. Wrong answers cost health or standing.
Monoliths do not give portal glyphs. They mark a portal if you hand over the right relic. Glyphs come from Traveller graves and the Artemis Path.
Plaques force a choice: a word plus standing, or the coordinates of a nearby ruin. Not both.
Ruins are excavation sites. Dig Artifact Fragments for Ancient Keys, then use three keys on the Large Artifact Crate.
Artifacts have three jobs: gift them for standing, feed them to a monolith for a portal location, or sell them.

Overview

The ancient sites reward homework rather than firepower. A monolith you cannot read is a coin flip that sometimes damages you. The same monolith with 80 words of vocabulary behind it is a reliable source of blueprints, standing and a portal marker.

The layer is badly documented in-game. Nothing tells you that a plaque choice is permanent, that ruins hide keys before they hide treasure, or that the relic in your inventory is the item a monolith wants. For the vocabulary behind all of it, the alien languages and Knowledge Stones guide is the companion piece.

The Site Types

Site	What it is	How to find it	What it gives
Monolith	Tall structure opening a multi-stage interaction in the system race's language	Planetary Chart (ancient artifact site), exocraft Radar Power Resonator, or spotted from the air	Words, blueprints, items, healing, standing, plus a portal location if you offer a relic
Ancient Plaque	Smaller stone marker with a memoir device at its base	Same chart, or the scan-for-ruins resonator option	A word plus standing, or the location of a nearby ruin. One or the other
Ancient Ruin	Part-buried excavation site with containers scattered underground	Plaque directions, Artifact Chart (dig site cartographic data), or the same planetary chart	Artifact Fragments holding Ancient Keys, and a Large Artifact Crate holding a random artifact
Traveller Grave	Lone marker holding a dead Traveller's final message	Pay a Traveller 100 nanites at a space station	One portal glyph, plus lore
Knowledge Stone	Small standing stone, often clustered around the sites above	Analysis Visor sweep on foot	One word, no risk
Guardian statue	Huge stone figures over fossil beds, added by the Relics update	Relic worlds only	A Vigilant Stone if you steal it, and awakened Stone Guardians if you do

Finding Sites On Purpose

The Cartographer on any space station is the reliable route. Charts cost Navigation Data or a small nanite fee, and the one you want is the Planetary Chart (ancient artifact site), which returns a plaque, a monolith or a ruin. Buy several, land, and open them one at a time.

Note the distinction that trips people up. The Artifact Chart (dig site cartographic data) is a different item pointing at dig sites rather than at intact plaque and monolith structures. If a mission or expedition milestone asks for alien ruins, the dig site chart will not satisfy it.

Two free options exist alongside charts. An exocraft fitted with the Radar Power Resonator offers a scan-for-ruins option from the quick menu at no cost per use. Signal Boosters will surface these structures eventually, but only after cycling through every other building type on the planet, so treat them as a fallback. Monoliths are also large enough to spot from a low pass.

What a Monolith Actually Does

A monolith presents a passage of lore, then a problem and a list of possible responses, written in the language of the race controlling the system. Your vocabulary decides how much of that text renders as readable words rather than glyphs. There is no separate skill check and no hidden stat. Comprehension is the mechanic.

Pick correctly and you get one or several rewards: a word in the system race's language or in Atlas script, a blueprint including multi-tool technology, an item, a health restoration, or a standing increase. Pick badly and the monolith can damage you or cut your standing, which is why the faction reputation and standing guide treats monoliths as the highest-variance standing source in the game.

The second stage is the one most players miss. After the initial exchange, a monolith will accept a race-specific relic and mark a portal on that planet. Gek systems want a Gek Relic, Korvax systems a Korvax Casing, Vy'keen systems a Vy'keen Dagger. What to do with the portal afterwards is covered in the portals and glyphs guide.

Monoliths and Portal Glyphs

A monolith marks the location of a portal. It does not teach you a glyph. The portal is a physical structure on the surface; the glyphs are the sixteen symbols you punch into it as an address.

Glyphs come from two places. Traveller graves give one each, and The Purge, the final mission of the Artemis Path storyline, awards a glyph on every hyperdrive warp until the sixteenth completes the set. The story route is much faster if you are already deep into the Atlas Path and Artemis storyline. With all sixteen in hand, the portal glyph address directory becomes usable.

Plaques and the Choice They Force

An ancient plaque reveals a slice of the controlling race's history, then offers two mutually exclusive options: seek help with language, or seek knowledge of the past. Language gives a word and a standing increase. Knowledge of the past reveals the location of an ancient ruin with an artifact buried under it.

You cannot come back for the other option. Take the ruin location in almost every case: words are cheap and usually available from Knowledge Stones within walking distance, while a marked ruin is a guaranteed artifact and a stack of keys.

Digging an Ancient Ruin

Ruins are excavation work, not dialogue. Most of the site is underground, so the visible rubble tells you little. Stand in the middle and hold up the Analysis Visor, which tags buried containers through the terrain.

A typical ruin holds five or six Artifact Fragments plus one Large Artifact Crate. Dig each fragment out with the Terrain Manipulator and it yields a single Ancient Key. The crate is sealed by three Ancient Locks, so you need three keys, and a normal ruin contains more than enough. There is no need to hoard keys between sites. The crate itself rewards a random artifact.

Relic worlds are a separate case. Their ruins sit alongside fossil beds watched over by huge stone guardian figures, and the Vigilant Stone each figure holds can be stolen. Doing so wakes one or two Stone Guardians, a living statue and a whirling column of animated rock, each dropping Polished Stone when destroyed. The paleontology and fossil hunting guide covers that side of relic worlds.

What Artifacts Are For

The relics are catalogued as curiosities rather than resources, and they have three real uses.

Faction standing. Handing a Gek Relic to a Gek, a Korvax Casing to a Korvax, or a Vy'keen Dagger to a Vy'keen raises standing with that race. This still works and is the least fiddly way to nudge a reputation track without running missions.

Portal location. The monolith exchange consumes one relic of the matching race, which is the best reason to hold a small stock of all three.

Crafting, in one case. A Korvax Casing is a component of the Consciousness Bridge on the living ship construction chain. If you intend to grow an organic starship, do not sell your casings.

Beyond that, they sell. Selling was once the point: pre-NEXT values ran into tens of thousands of units per relic. Those figures were cut in the NEXT rebalance and current values are not consistently documented, so treat artifact sales as incidental income. If units are the goal, the best money making guide has better options.

You need not dig for relics at all. NPC pilots at trading posts and stations sell them, and they turn up in damaged containers.

Traveller Graves

Travellers are the translucent NPCs that appear occasionally at space stations, and less often at observatories, minor settlements and trading posts. Ask one where they came from, at a cost of 100 nanites, and a grave is marked on a planet in the current system. Activating it plays that Traveller's broken final message and awards a portal glyph.

Two limits matter. Only one grave per system exists, so paying a second Traveller there leads back to the same marker and wastes the nanites. And once you have taken a location from a Traveller, that option disappears for them permanently. Community consensus is that the glyph awarded is always one you do not already own, though older reports of duplicates exist and the behaviour has never been documented officially.

Systems containing a black hole are widely reported to host a Traveller on their space station, which makes black hole hopping a workable route if you are collecting glyphs the slow way.

FAQ

Do monoliths give portal glyphs?

No. A monolith marks a portal's physical location once you offer it the matching race relic, but the sixteen glyph symbols come from Traveller graves and from The Purge at the end of the Artemis Path. Being handed a portal you cannot yet address is what conflates the two.

Are ancient ruins and alien ruins the same thing?

The game uses more than one label for closely related sites and the community uses them inconsistently. What matters is the chart split: the ancient artifact site chart returns plaques, monoliths and ruins, while the dig site chart returns excavation sites only.

What happens if I answer a monolith wrong?

You can take damage, lose standing with the controlling race, or waste the interaction. The penalty is not catastrophic, but repeated guessing in one race's space will visibly drag that reputation down. Build vocabulary before farming monoliths seriously.

Should I sell my Gek Relics and Korvax Casings?

Keep at least one of each. They are the entry fee for a monolith's portal location and a clean standing gift, and Korvax Casings feed the Consciousness Bridge. Sell the surplus without expecting meaningful money. The trading guide explains how demand modifiers work at terminals.

Do I need the Terrain Manipulator for ruins?

Yes. Nearly everything at a ruin is buried, and the Analysis Visor tags containers without surfacing them. Without a Terrain Manipulator you will find nothing but rubble.

Has any of this changed recently?

The Relics update in March 2025 added relic worlds, the stone guardian figures, and the Vigilant Stone that wakes them. Monoliths, plaques, ruins and Traveller graves work as described here and have not been meaningfully reworked since.

Key Takeaways

Vocabulary is the whole difficulty curve. Monoliths reward reading and punish guessing.
Buy the ancient artifact site chart, not the dig site chart, unless you want excavation specifically.
At a plaque, take the ruin location over the word. Words are replaceable, marked ruins are not.
Carry one Gek Relic, one Korvax Casing and one Vy'keen Dagger so any monolith can point you at a portal.
Glyphs and portal locations are separate problems. Traveller graves or The Purge for glyphs, monoliths for locations.
Artifact selling is a leftover from an older economy. Treat relics as tools, not income.

No Man's Sky Monoliths, Ruins & Artifacts: Every Ancient Site Explained