This guide is just intended to help you get your first green tile quickly and easily. I'm not sure how to chain fissures yet, get most bonus loot, or anything else. So, bear with me because the only part I'm feeling sure about is just getting the first green tile and digging up the antiquity successfully.

If you're looking to learn more about Scrying or Antiquities in general, this video by CED ESO is helpful:


However, the following guide is pretty much only about how to get your first green tile and complete the excavation. The guide is divided into the following sections:

• Quickslotting the Antiquarian's Eye tool
  
• Using the Augur tool to find your first green tile
  
• Figuring out which antiquity container you have
  
• Digging it up

One thing that is very important is that I've seen many people say they didn't know they could put the Antiquarian's Eye tool in their quickslots. Having it available in a quickslot is incredibly important so you can use it quickly and easily. So, here's how you do that:







The Tools icon:

• Press E to add automatically add it to an open quickslot
  
• Drag it from your Tools panel into a quickslot of your choice

You should now have the Antiquarian's Eye tool in one of your quickslots, like this:



When you are done adding something to your quickslots, you have to close/exit the quicksloting ability by again pressing Q. If you don't do this, the next time you enter your inventory, your quickslots will be open and it can be confusing.

You should now no longer see the quickslotting circle.

The Antiquarian's Eye is now available for use in your active quickslot:



If you don't see the Antiquarian's Eye in your active quickslot, exit from all inventory menus and press Q, allowing you to select the tool for your active quickslot:

The excavation dig site is a 10 x 10 grid:


With the Augur tool, select these four tiles:


If you try to use the augur tool on a tile and it is red like this:



it means the dirt is too deep for the augur to detect through. The augur can only detect through 3 layers of dirt. So, if the antiquity is under 4 layers of dirt, you'll have to dig down 1 layer before the augur will work. In this case, you have a few options:

• Put more skill points in the Augur skill line[en.uesp.net]. This will allow the augur to detect through more layers of dirt. At higher level excavations, though, sometimes you will always have to dig deeper before the augur will work.
  
• If you don't have skill points available at the moment, try digging with the brush down 1 or 2 layers until the augur will work.

For example, in this dig site, the dirt is too deep for the augur to work through. So, dig down on those four tiles until the augur's cursor is white, not red:



Now that you are able to use the augury tool, click on these four tiles. Each time you click on a tile, it will turn one of four colors: red, orange, yellow, or green:


These different colors indicate how far away that tile is from the artifact:

• Red means you are far away from the artifact
  
• Orange means closer to the artifact
  
• Yellow means very near
  
• Green means it is part of the artifact

Note: If you are colorblind, the red tile is very dim, while the green tile is very vibrant.

It's possible that when selecting these four center tiles, one will be green. If so,
skip ahead to the "Digging up the Antiquity" section.

If not, you should keep using the augur tool until you find a green tile. Here's how to do that.

If you have 4 yellow tiles, use the augur tool where the green circles are. One of them should give you your first green tile:

Depending on which tiles are orange and which are yellow, use the augur tool on the tiles with the green circle, as shown here. One of the two should be green:

With 2 red tiles and 2 yellow, use the augur tool on the tiles with green circles, as shown here. One should give you a green tile:

With 3 orange and 1 yellow, click on the tile with the check mark. That one will be green:

With 2 red, 1 orange and 1 yellow, click on the tile with the check mark. That one will be green:

Once you've located 1 green tile, it's time to dig up the antiquity.

The very first thing to do is dig all the way down on the 1 green tile until you reach the bottom and can see 1 tile worth of the antiquity container.

Don't dig anywhere else until you see this 1 tile so you can save time digging only where the antiquity is.

So, dig down to the bottom of the first green tile and see which part of the antiquity is there. For this, it's good to know that, at the time of this writing, the pool of antiquity containers used for each tier is limited to some degree. Once you identify the container using the pictures below, note that you are only required to dig up the tiles I've highlighted in green in order for the antiquity to be considered cleared.

For example, here, the antiquity container is a 2x3 chest laying diagonally:



You only need to uncover the tiles marked in green in this guide for the antiquity to be considered fully uncovered.

So, with the first tile uncovered, identify which container you have by referring to the follow pictures.

For green antiquities, the most common container is the 2x3 silver chest. In my experience, I have only seen it laying vertically. However, sometimes the angle varies:





However, I have seen a 3x3 book used instead:



This book is usually only found in Intermediate (Blue) antiquities.

For intermediate antiquities, the most common container is a sack, that only occupies 5 tiles (2 on the top, and 3 on the bottom). I have only seen it laying horizontally, like this:



Less commonly, a 3x3 book is sometimes used. I've seen it rotated several different ways:







Once, I've seen a 3x3 satchel:

For advanced antiquities, the most common container seems to be a 2x4 vertical chest:



The second, lesser common container is a 2x3 sack, sometimes vertical, sometimes horizontal:





One time, I've seen the 2x3 diagonal chest that normally only is used for Master (Gold) antiquities:



Note that although I call it a "2x3 diagonal chest", it actually is comprised of 8 total tiles.

For Master antiquities, the most common container is the 2x3 diagonal chest:



Note that although I call it a "2x3 diagonal chest", it actually is comprised of 8 total tiles.

One time I found a 3x3 wooden crate:



Twice, I've found a diagonal purple crystal:



Although it might not look like the top left square highlighted here in green needs to be uncovered, it does. That means a total of 6 tiles need to be uncovered.

Now that you can see the one square of the antiquity container, and you can finish digging it up.

Notice that often, some parts of the antiquity will actually seem to be covered by bits of dirt, but the tile is still considered clean. For example, here, the chest is considered completely uncovered and recovered, even though some corners of dirt tiles still touch the chest:



You only need to dig up the tiles highlighted in green in this guide.

Once you're done digging up the container, you have the option of continuing digging to see if you uncover bonus loot. So far, all bonus loot only occupies 1 tile.

Good luck!

If anything is unclear, please feel free to leave a comment asking for clarification.