(Excerpt from the book ‘The Greek presence in Tunisia
16th-21st “)
The city of Sfax was the second biggest city in
Tunisia and its major port. The Greeks settled in the 1850s and dealt with
sponge fishery. In 1875, the Greek sponge fishers
from the island of Kalymnos introduced the use of fishing with ‘skandalopetra diving’ in the Gulf of Gabès. A
few years later, they used scuba techniques for the first time in sponge
fishery. In 1899, the Greeks owned 82 vessels while the Italians owned
54.
The sponge fishery showed an upward trend
over the next few decades, reaching its peak in 1912. It was connected to the network of the international market since
sponges were exported to several European countries, Middle East and the Black
Sea. In 1911, more than 450 Greek ‘sponge units’ were recorded in Sfax, which
employed almost 3000 divers Most of them were from the islands of Kalymnos, Symi
and Ydra. During the 1930s, the Greeks owned more than 3000 ‘sponge units’. Panagiotis
Balourdos was regarded as one of the wealthiest men in Sfax between 1920 and
1940 since his annual turnover was estimated to be 40 million FF. He owned more
than 1000 ‘sponge units’ and thousands of acres of olive orchards.
