Aegean Interest on the Uluburun Ship

Abstract

The inventory of elite manufactured objects and the large quantity of metal recovered from the Late Bronze Age Uluburun shipwreck mirror in many respects palatial gift exchange deliveries as they are recorded in the contemporary Amarna Letters. The excavator of the shipwreck proposes that two men of Aegean origin were on board and that the ship was sailing to the Aegean. By combining data generated from the Uluburun shipwreck with textual and archaeological evidence from the contemporary Near East and Aegean, this paper evaluates the plausibility of a diplomatic voyage en route to the Aegean tied to Mycenaean palatial enterprise.*