According to legend, on which Mediterranean island did the Cyclops, Polyphemus, live?
Cyclops Polyphemus did not make him a cyclops before Homer's "Odyssey"; Polyphemus may have been some sort of local daemon or monster in original stories. Another possible origin for the cyclops legend, advanced by the paleontologist Othenio Abel in 1914, is the prehistoric dwarf elephant skulls – about twice the size of a human skull – that may have been found by the Greeks on Cyprus, Crete, Malta and Sicily. Abel suggested that the large, central nasal cavity (for the trunk) in the skull might have been interpreted as a large single eye-socket. Given the inexperience of the locals with living
Polyphemus Polyphemus Polyphemus (; "Polyphēmos") is the giant son of Poseidon and Thoosa in Greek mythology, one of the Cyclopes described in Homer's "Odyssey". His name means "abounding in songs and legends". Polyphemus first appears as a savage man-eating giant in the ninth book of the "Odyssey". Some later Classical writers link his name with the nymph Galatea and present him in a different light. In Homer's epic, Odysseus lands on the island of the Cyclops during his journey home from the Trojan War and, together with some of his men, enters a cave filled with provisions. When the giant Polyphemus