[Image above] Some of the blown glass-bead ornaments from Czechia in the author’s collection. Credit: Becky Stewart
In 2003, when my children were small, my then-husband David was deployed to southern Iraq with his Army Reserve Civil Affairs unit. Because their mission was to help the local civilian population, and because David loves to cook, he spent hours learning about their food rituals. One of the staples was tandoori flatbread, i.e., bread baked in a large, open-topped clay oven called a tandoor (alternatively, tanoor or tandir).

The author pointing to a picture her then-husband David took of local people baking flatbread in southern Iraq. Credit: Becky Stewart
It was definitely a blast from the past to find tandir craftsmanship and bread baking in Azerbaijan on the 2024 UNESCO List of Intangible Cultural Heritage. It turns out that tandoor ovens are a relic of the Harappans, a civilization that thrived in the Indus Valley 5,000 years ago but dispersed to the south and east when the environment changed, approximately 3,900 years ago. Wherever they went, they took their culture with them. Two of those exports are tandoor ovens and curry.
Traditional tandoor ovens are made of clay and operate by building a large fire in the bottom, which burns down to the coals. The clay walls hold the heat for hours and provide even baking conditions for the flat bread dough, which is applied directly to the inner walls of the oven and peeled off when it has baked, often in minutes.
Brief culinary interlude aside, tandoor ovens are not the only ceramic technology on the UNESCO Lists of Intangible Cultural Heritage. In this CTT, we’ll look at other ceramic technologies that have made the lists over the last decade and discover the important role that being listed has in the preservation of these cultural traditions.
UNESCO and its mission to preserve cultural heritage
The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) was founded in the midst of World War II, as the Allied Nations recognized that rebuilding the education systems of warring nations would be a foundational step toward ensuring lasting peace. Since the 1940s, UNESCO’s mission has grown to encompass scientific collaborations and preservation of intangible cultural heritage.
The Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage was adopted in 2003 and entered into force on April 20, 2006. In 2008, 90 Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity, proclaimed between 2001 and 2005, were inscribed on the first List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
Intangible cultural heritage is defined as traditions or cultural expressions inherited from ancestors, such as oral traditions, customs, performing arts, crafts, and more—including handmade items such as glass beads and ceramic utensils. These skills have been passed down for generations and now their existence is threatened.
Preserving cultural traditions and practices helps people connect to their national and ethnic identities. Even in an era of globalization, national identities provide people with a sense of belonging. Additionally, preserving intangible culture ensures that even as younger generations disperse, they can access their history in meaningful ways.
Inscribing an intangible cultural heritage practice on the UNESCO lists is a community-driven effort, which involves documenting the practice’s importance to the community, explaining how it is unique, demonstrating that the practice is under threat, and verifying that there are procedures in place to raise community awareness and to pass along the traditions. Items inscribed on the lists are eligible to receive money from the Intangible Cultural Heritage Fund to help with preservation efforts.
Ceramic items recognized by UNESCO in the last decade
Because of their inherent durability, ceramic products are well represented on the UNESCO lists. Humans have produced pottery and glass for millennia, and these objects can serve a variety of practical, cultural, and artistic purposes—often simultaneously.
The ceramic practices on the lists fall broadly into four categories: clay production, pottery decorating, sculpting, and glass working. Brief descriptions of each practice in these categories are provided below. The UNESCO webpage for each entry includes an approximately 10-minute video. These videos are beautifully filmed, and I recommend watching them (although the automatically generated subtitles for the non-English videos are not perfect).
Clay production
The ceramic practices in this category focus heavily on the source materials—mining the clay, mixing it with calcite or sand, working the materials to obtain specific colors or viscosities in the clay, and firing the pottery using locally sourced fuels such as grasses or dung.
In south-central Vietnam, the Chăm ethnic minority people use their feet to mix clay and sand in specific proportions to produce their unglazed pottery. In Zlakusa, Serbia, local clay is mixed with calcite in varying percentages depending on the size and purpose of the finished product. In Bisalhaes, Portugal, an unglazed black pottery has been produced for centuries by firing the clay objects in outdoor pits. In northern Peru, the wise women of the indigenous Awajún people have safeguarded their pottery-making techniques for centuries.
Decorating
Painting and glazing pottery is another practice that often has deep cultural meanings. Traditional themes and specific colors may be unique to families or villages, or so deeply enshrined in the national identity as to be almost synonymous.
The women of Sejnane, Tunisia produce cookware, utensils, and other handmade pottery objects for the home that they decorate with traditional designs and colors. In the Carpathian region of Ukraine, the decorative themes on local pottery are painted in green and yellow mineral glazes that are also sourced locally. The decorative glazing techniques of Turkey’s çini makers have been perfected through generations. Ceramic artists in Uzbekistan traditionally learn the skill from their grandparents, and each lineage may have their own characteristic style. Mexican talavera pottery involves techniques originally brough from Spain by the conquistadors but made exuberantly their own in the last 500 years.
Sculpting
Not all pottery is made into vessels for cooking or eating. Estremoz, Portugal is famous for its clay figures that are uniquely decorated on specific themes. The handmade tableware and figurines of Chile’s mestizo culture has been produced by women for generations, but it is under threat as the clay mining areas are converted to farmland.
Glass production
Before researching this blog post, I was unaware that a glassblower could make flat glass. Now that I’ve seen it done by German glassmakers, I can appreciate that it is a low-intensity way to produce sheets of glass. Traditional Syrian glassblowers have the longest history with glassmaking of any of the practices described here, being the closest geographically to Mesopotamia, where glassmaking was likely invented.
The glass beads from southern France and northern Italy represent a range of creative practices and are an obsession waiting to happen. Glass beads have always been valuable and can offer insights into ancient trade networks.
I was surprised to discover that one of the items on the lists is something that I own—Christmas ornaments made of blown glass beads from Czechia. At first, I did not believe that they were made of glass because of how light and yet durable they are. The history of these Christmas ornaments is a short course in 20th-century central European history.
Threats to intangible cultural heritage related to ceramic traditions
As I touched on earlier, these amazing cultural treasures only get put on the lists if they are somehow threatened with extinction. Modernization and globalization are two of the biggest threats to traditional practices and ways of life. Loss of access to the clay source materials due to demands of land use for other purposes is another threat.
But, once a practice is put on the lists, awareness of its precarious situation is immediately raised, and financial support becomes possible. If this blog post has opened your eyes to the importance of traditional ceramic and glass production, look around for local potters and glass artists—they will appreciate your support.
Author
Becky Stewart
CTT Categories
- Art & Archaeology
- Education
Related Posts
Hypersonic flight: Redefining the aerospace frontier
February 6, 2025
Eggshells: A prime example of natural engineering
January 7, 2025