Sicily was once the world’s largest exporter of sulphur. At the beginning of the twentieth century the island had 700 mines with 40 thousand workers and supplied four fifths of world production. The extraction was concentrated in the so-called

sulphur plateau, five thousand square kilometres spread between Enna, Agrigento and Caltanissetta. American competition and the discovery that sulphur could be obtained through oil refining sparked off the crisis; the last mines closed in 1988.

The sulphur-mines are a chapter of Sicilian history which have left traces both in its traditions and landscape. Silent ghosts which have become one of the most interesting industrial archaeology itineraries.