Between the end of September and the beginning of October Alessandro spent two weeks in Sicily, conducting additional research on the island's highly priced, if rare, amber, known as Simetite.
A significant part of the trip was dedicated to gaining a better understanding of the current market for amber in Catania. Alessandro visited and interviewed the few jewelers in the city who are still dealing with local amber, and he collected historical material on the development of the amber industry in the area.
While Sicilian amber is a story centered in Catania, the precious stones themselves are not only found on the shores of the city at the foot of mount Etna. On the southernmost point of the island, near Pachino, over 100 km from Catania, a stretch of coast is named after the prehistoric resin: Costa dell'ambra. And near Agrigento, some 150km to the west of Catania, Alessandre met a local man who regularly searches for (and finds) amber across a few beaches.
Lastly, Alessandro followed up on the story of the river Simeto, which gave Sicilian amber its scientific name. The river flows into the sea just south of Catania, but due to dam construction and the use of its water for agricultural purposes, the river carries much less sediment (and with it, amber) to its estuary compared to a few decades ago. The engineering of rivers is a universal story - one that Alessandro tried to trace, in the context of the Simeto, with the help of members of the project BIOTraCes, a Horizon Europe project based at the University of Catania, involving local grassroots groups fighting for ecological recovery and protection of the Simeto River.
