Reflecting on her early researches in the Italian archives investigating Italian colonialism in Libya, Roberta Biasillo takes the reader on a journey through two different settings. Archival photographs of Libyan soils act as prompts for remembering the dry, crumbling soils she observed during the Swedish heatwave of 2018 and the lush, fertile soil that characterized her childhood in Central Italy. These reflections are then used to trace Italy’s colonial engagements in Libya.