ABSTRACT
Cyprus is the most easterly of the Mediterranean islands; smaller than Sicily and Sardinia, it is somewhat larger than its nearest neighbour, Crete, but differs from it markedly in its configuration and in its climate. It had remained isolated from the mainland and was the home of a very distinctive fauna, including miniature hippopotamus and miniature crocodile. These remarkable animals were, inevitably, swiftly hunted to extinction by Cyprus's human immigrants. In many respects Cyprus represents a sort of fossilization of aspects of the bull-cult drawn from southern Europe, and ultimately from Anatolia, thousands of years earlier. The bull in Cyprus, universal though he is and majestic in the way that he is depicted, generally, though not invariably, a placid creature, a symbol of life and fecundity and not invested with the elements of fear which attend him in other of the places in which the cult has been a powerful influence in the people's lives.
