Morgantina

Some more important excavations just out of Aidone. This is an ancient Greek city with temples dedicated to the Demeter and Persephone, Goddesses of harvest and fertility. There are temples and sanctuaries with thousands and thousands of offerings to Goddesses throughout Sicily.
The crux of their story is Persephone was kidnapped by Hades, Lord of the underworld. Her mother, Demeter, wandered the earth looking for her, she was so angry that she forbade any fruits on earth to grow. The land became barren and the people were dying so Zeus commanded the Persephone be returned to Demeter under the condition that she had not tasted any fruit of the underworld. But, alas, she had tasted 7 pomegranate seeds… So a compromise was reached. Persephone would be returned to Demeter in this time plants would flourish and crops would be abundant but for three months of the year she would have to return to Hades. Thus the barren season… the incredibly dry late Summer, where nothing grows.
We don’t try to overanalyse Sicily and it’s daily chaotic and nonsensical happenings, its story is long and complicated but this one, we liked. It kind of puts into perspective the extreme contrasts and contradictions here, there’s brilliant sunshine but also a sense of eternal melancholy and pessimism, the richness and abundance of the land yet the historic poverty. It was also timely that we happened to venture into central Sicily at the time where the green quickly gives way to various shades of burnt and there’s been less for us to farm.

Aidone