One of the first known traces of Phuket is from a book written around the year 157 by Claudius Ptolemy, a famous Greek philosopher, that to travel to Malay Peninsula by ship, the travelers had to pass a cape known as Junk Ceylon. Located between latitudes 6 N and 8 N (which is the present site of Phuket Island), Junk Ceylon was at that time visited by merchants of several nations including India, Persia, and Arabia. The island offered a bay that protected its harbor from the wind and monsoon, making it a good stopover. Moreover, it had plenty of tin ore deposits that fetched high prices at that time.