The Depository · Browse · Middle East
The Depository documents 15 techniques in Lebanon; by risk level: 9 critically endangered, 4 endangered, 1 stable. Each record opens with a public summary; the full research record is free to view once registered.
The crafting of fine jewelry directly combining antique bronzes and archaeological artifacts with wood, carved mother-of-pearl, goldwork, and colored gemstones, a technique developed by Lebanese jewelry designer Nada Le Cavelier, who began…
The casting of bronze church bells and chimes in Beit Chabab, a Metn-region mountain village, home to the only bell foundry remaining in Lebanon and directly documented as the last such foundry in the entire Middle East.
The hand-crafting of gold and silver jewelry within Bourj Hammoud, a densely packed Beirut district founded by survivors of the Armenian Genocide of 1915 and expanded mostly during the 1930s, home today to around 230,000 people of Armenian…
The carving of phoenix-bird-shaped cutlery handles and the crafting of accompanying stainless steel blades in Jezzine, a mountain town in South Lebanon, developed from a blade-making heritage stretching back some 250 years, when families…
The hand-crafting of the tantour, a tall conical headdress directly described by the Zay Initiative as the one head ornament recognisable as distinctly Lebanese, worn by married women of Mount Lebanon, most prominently the nineteenth…
The hand-shaping of copper plates and vessels by hammer in Souk el Nahasine, Tripoli's historic copper market, where traces of copper making and metalworking in Lebanon can be found as early as the Bronze Age.
A rare, historically significant palm-leaf basket-weaving tradition unique to Amchit, a seafront town near Jbeil, directly documented as unique in the entire Mediterranean for its distinctive simplicity.
The hand-weaving of carpets and rugs using wool, silk, or a combination of both, kept alive specifically by the women of the remote Bekaa valley villages of Jdeydet el Fekha and Aarsal.
Weaving on the nawl, an old horizontal-warp loom used to produce carpets, tablecloths, small silk bags, jackets, and abayas (traditional ceremonial cloaks woven with wool or silk), a technique dating back to the Phoenicians, who produced…
The hand-pouring of mosaic cement tiles using metal stencils and natural pigments, a craft that emerged in Lebanon in the late nineteenth century, influenced by the decorative traditions of the Ottoman Empire and the wider Mediterranean…
All miscellaneous & heritage-adjacent craft techniques worldwide →
A vertically integrated leather-craft trade chain built by Armenian refugees who survived the 1915 genocide and fled the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, settling in Bourj Hammoud, the densely packed district just east of the Beirut River,…
The hand-forming of large clay pitchers used for preserving foods including olive oil, olives, vinegar, arak, and preserved meat, using a technique that combines the pottery wheel with a coiled-clay-roll building method also used in vase…
A sophisticated wood-decoration tradition combining two genuinely distinct techniques -- marquetry and inlay -- practiced in Ouzai, a few kilometers south of Beirut, where master craftsman Houssam Outabashi operates multiple workshops…
The hand-blowing of glass objects by the Khalifeh family, in Sarafand, South Lebanon, directly documented as the last remaining traditional glassblowing operation in the entire country -- a severe, precisely quantified decline from the…
The hand-production of olive oil soap within Khan Al-Saboun, Tripoli's historic Soap Khan, an imposing rectangular caravanserai structure built at the beginning of the seventeenth century by Yusuf Al-Saifi, pasha of Tripoli, its…