Cyprus before being a European Union nation

How was Cyprus before before being a European Union nation ?

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Cyprus is an island with a land mass that stretches about 150 miles in length and fifty miles in width. It is a mountainous Mediterranean island that peaks about 7000 feet above sea level. There are artifacts from the stone ages proving that small tribes used the island as a base of survival. Within the mountainous terrain of the island thickly populated with Cyprus trees copper was found abundantly by early explorers who used the wood to burn ore refining processes. It is believed that the seafaring shipbuilding Phoenician had claimed Cyprus as theirs and probably had Ethiopian slave labourers working for them while being supplied by the Egyptians. The Phoenician began their culture in about 2500 BC and were likely descendants of the Canaanites. They inhabited the lands of Palestine, Syria, and Israel, and became the most influential seafarers of their time. The Phoenician expanded into the islands of the Mediterranean. Cyprus was one such island.

The Greeks came to the island sometime after the Phoenician and called Cyprus by several names; Paphos, Acamantis, Asphelia, Cyprus, and more. In old biblical records it is named Citium or Chittim. By 1250 BC the Greeks were settled in communities but for many centuries the ruling class were either Assyrian, Persian, or Egyptian.

The Egyptians seem to have conquered Cyprus in about 600 BC. Alexander the Great, the Greek conquerer claimed Cyprus and when he died in 323 BC, Cyprus was given to one of one of his generals. That general was Ptolemy I, the son of Lagus received the island. During the Greek period the island of Cyprus was a devotion to the goddess Venus and it is said that it's population was as abundant in beautiful women as it was in great Cyprus trees. In the classical Greek period, which ends at approximately the same time as Alexander dies, Cyprus was the island where Aphrodite was born. She later moves to Mount Olympus to join the other deities. Mount Olympus is the highest point of the Troodos mountains on Cyprus.



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The Ptolemaics rule Cyprus of almost 3 centuries but the Romans then make Cyprus one of its provinces and the first Roman governor is Cato. Until about 600 AD it remains a Roman province. According to biblical references Paul the Apostles and Barnabas come to Chittim to raise the monotheistic flag and sew the seeds of Christianity. By about 350 AD the Cypriot population had almost completely converted from paganism to the one God faith.

When Islam came on the scene in the 7th century AD the Arabs began raiding the Christian dominated island of Cyprus but the then Islamic Caliph and the Archbishop signed a treaty that made provisions for a joint sharing of the Cypriot island rule.

The truce was broken at the end of the first millenia when the Byzantines declared Cyprus as theirs. Byzantines were basically Greek speaking Romans who ruled the Eastern Roman Empire and Byzantium starts in the time of Constantine ( the emporer who converted to Christianity in about 300 AD).

By 1200 AD the crusaders put an end to the Byzantines under the lead of Richard the Lionheart of England and the Templar Knights bought Cyprus from the English. Story goes that the Knights of Templar were unable to keep the financial books in order and the Mediterranean island was turned over to the King of Jerusalem. The Jerusalem king in question was Guy de Lusignan and was actually a Christian French speaking dispossesed royal. King Lusignan takes possession of Cyprus and the island population grew with French immigrants and basically any one who would help repopulate the island which Lusignan governed under feudal law. The Lusignan period ends with Caterina Cornaro, Queen of Cyprus until 1489.

The island of Cyprus after Queen Cornaro is ruled by Venetian who had began earnestly expanding Italy. The crusader state of Cyprus was annexed to Venice. In the 16th century the Venetian were fighting with the Ottoman Turks and in 1571 Cyprus fell to the Turks. It remained a Turkic state until 1878.

From 1878 the British take over Cyprus from the Ottoman but agree to pay the Ottoman Sultan a duty which he is to use to pay off European creditors. For a time there were rumours that Cyprus would be merged with Greece but that never materialized. The British held Cyprus until 1960.

The 1959 Zurich Agreement leads to the 1960 independence of the Republic of Cyprus. Over time the population of Cyprus had become balanced between Turks and Greeks. The amnesty of the Zurich agreement made provisions for Turkish Cypriots and for Greek Cypriots and acted as a treatise of alliance.

Now Cyprus was a sovereign nation with a constitution of its own. From 1960 until 2007 the Central Bank of Cyprus tried to manage the Cypriot current account by influencing the Cypriot pound which was legal tender.

The Cypriot pound was legal tender until Cyprus joined the European Union on May 1, 2004, and further adopted the Eurozone currency on January 1, 2008. The Cypriot pound is now out of circulation and Cyprus is one of the seventeen nations trading under a single currency in the Euro Zone.