In the late Bronze Age, around the 14th century BC, a richly stocked cargo ship sank off the south coast of Turkey. The wreck, called Uluburun, was rediscovered in 1983, and archaeological expeditions have yielded an astonishing collection of artefacts. She was carrying copper and tin ingots, plus exotic raw materials such as ebony, amber, ostrich eggs, elephant ivory and hippopotamus teeth, while manmade artefacts ranged from pottery, tools and fishing equipment to weapons, jewellery and a gold scarab bearing the name of the Egyptian queen Nefertiti. The huge wealth of the cargo suggests that this was a royal vessel, perhaps taking gifts to the Pharaohs of Egypt.
But despite all this treasure, the ship's origin has been a mystery. The items on board came from at least nine different cultures, including Canaanite, Mycenean, Egyptian, Cypriot and Babylonian. All experts have been able to say is that she probably sailed from either the mines of Cyprus, or the coast of Syria or Palestine.
I just saw a lovely little paper in last month's Journal of Archaeological Science that reports a new clue - from a young mouse that went down with the ship. Researchers sifted through loose sand and sediment brought up from the wreck and found a tiny jaw bone, just a centimetre long. Thomas Cucchi of Durham University analysed it and concludes it comes from a house mouse (Mus musculus domesticus). It's pretty certain that mice have spread across the Mediterranean in ships throughout ancient history but this is the earliest direct evidence of it, in fact that only other such stowaway ever found is a brown rat (Rattus norvegicus) from an 18th-century French galleon that sank off Corsica.
What's more, Cucchi reckons that a tooth from the Uluburun stowaway is most similar in shape to those of house mice that live in Syria today. Mice were likely to be brought on board with shipments of grain, so he tentatively concludes that the ship started her journey at the Canaanite port of Ugarit, on the Syrian coast. Ugarit was a huge international trading centre in the 13th and 14th centuries BC, and probably the only place on the Syrian coast where a ship could have taken on board large shipments of both grain and metal ingots.