Curiosities about the Cyclops
According to mythology, Mount Etna was inhabited by the Cyclops. The origin of myth is perhaps linked to some bone findings.
It is believed that the origin of the myth of the Cyclops, monstrous giants with only one eye in the center of the forehead, may derive from the discovery inside some Sicilian caves of elephant skulls that lived in prehistoric times. In fact, the elephant's skull without tusks resembles the human one in shape but much larger and with only one hole in the center. The hole is actually the hollow of the proboscis but the first discoverers of the remains could not know it and therefore thought of gigantic creatures with only one eye. The many stories about the Cyclops probably originated from these findings, including but the best known was certainly the one in Homer's Odyssey which tells of the episode in which Ulysses runs into Polyphemus, a terrible Cyclops who raised sheep on the slopes of Etna.
