Cyprus has been a gateway to the eastern Mediterranean for 10,000 years, when it was first settled by Anatolian tribes. Since then, the 3,600 square mile island has endured millennia of invasions. It has been fought over by the Ancient Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, Venetians, the Ottomans and the British. Conquerors came initially for the timber, then for the copper (from whence the name ‘Cyprus’ is derived) and then for the strategic position the island continues to occupy between the eastern and western Mediterranean.