I’ve slowly been working on The Seat of Knowledge archeology achievement which rewards the title Seeker of Knowledge.
After much digging stuff up – I’m so glad I was doing this on a dwarf thanks to one of their racial abilities – I finally have it!
The tl;dr of the post is that it took 955 Mogu and Pandaren artifacts to get this achievement.
Getting all of the pristine artifacts wasn’t too bad at the start. Towards the end however? It got really painful. There is apparently a 10% chance of an artifact being pristine which doesn’t sound too bad.
However towards the end you have to work through a lot of other artifacts you’ve already had pristine instances of to get the ones you’re missing. When you’re down to needing a single pristine artifact you end up needing to work through three things to get that last pristine artifact:
- The right digsite available – the Lorewalker Maps can help with this
- The right artifacts being worked on
- The completed artifact being pristine
So, what do the numbers look like for me? I’ve not included the Mantid numbers here as for a while back in 5.1 I was using the Mantid Artifact Sonic Locator which will skew the numbers as there was no chance I’d get Pandaren or Mogu digsites whilst that was in use.
Total number of Pandaren and Mogu artifacts: 955
Pandaren artifacts
| Count | Artifact |
|---|---|
| 56 | Gold-Inlaid Porcelain Funerary Figurine |
| 52 | Apothecary Tins |
| 51 | Standard of Niuzao |
| 50 | Pandaren Game Board |
| 48 | Twin Stein Set of Brewfather Quan Tou Kuo |
| 47 | Carved Bronze Mirror |
| 44 | Empty Keg of Brewfather Xin Wo Yin |
| 44 | Pearl of Yu’lon |
| 42 | Pandaren Tea Set |
| 35 | Walking Cane of Brewfather Ren Yun |
| Total | 469 |
Mogu artifacts
| Count | Artifact |
|---|---|
| 55 | Warlord’s Branding Iron |
| 53 | Edicts of the Thunder King |
| 52 | Mogu Coin |
| 52 | Cracked Mogu Runestone |
| 51 | Worn Monument Ledger |
| 51 | Petrified Bone Whip |
| 45 | Thunder King Insignia |
| 45 | Terracotta Arm |
| 44 | Manacles of Rebellion |
| 38 | Iron Amulet |
| Total | 486 |
Sivation's musings about WoW... and cooking 
I do a LOT of digging and I am not there yet :) Congratulations!
Thanks! And yes, it takes a lot of digging! 955 mogu + pandaran artifacts in total. Plus a load more Mantid ones on top of that.
Got all of the “collect 20 artifact” achievements whilst chasing this & then some!
Good luck with your digging up of stuff as you seek knowledge.