When Julia Martin visits the Greek islands of the Dodecanese, beauty and
suffering seem inextricable. On the Sponge Islands follows her journey
through Rhodes, Symi, Halki, Kalymnos, and Patmos to trace the cultural
and ecological legacy of sponge diving. Because of their wonderful porosity,
sea sponges have always been perfect for a myriad of human uses, and
men from the islands had been diving for them and trading them since
antiquity. In the late nineteenth century new deep sea diving suits made it
possible to mine the seabed as never before and bring home untold wealth.
It was a rich harvest that came at the cost of many lives. And it couldn’t
last. Everything, one might say, flowed through sponges. Until it didn’t.

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