Bangladesh · Perfumery / Aromatic Distillation
আগর আতর (agor-ator)
Production of agarwood (oud) oil in the villages of Sujanagar, Barlekha upazila, Moulvibazar district: Aquilaria trees are wounded with hundreds of iron nails to induce resin, harvested after several years, chipped largely by women, soaked for weeks to months and distilled for up to 15 days. Over 80% of houses in Sujanagar’s 30 villages are reported to host a small factory.
Risk level: Vulnerable · Not inscribed
The hand-painting and decoration of Dhaka's iconic three-wheeled cycle rickshaws — a form of moving public folk art recognized by UNESCO on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in December 2023 as…
A performative narrative art form combining hand-painted cloth scrolls with sung storytelling, practiced continuously in the Bengal cultural region — including present-day Bangladesh — since at least the 12th century according to…
Jamdani (জামদানি) is the supplementary weft muslin woven on the banks of the Shitalakshya river near Narayanganj — the surviving peak of the Dhaka muslin tradition that produced what Mughal court records called 'woven air' and European…
Kantha (কাঁথা) is the Bengali tradition of stitching old cotton saris into layered quilted textiles using the running stitch — simultaneously quilting the layers together and creating the surface decoration.
Shankhari Bazaar (শাঁখারী বাজার) — 'conch seller's market' — is one of the last surviving conch shell carving districts in the world, occupying a single street in old Dhaka where hereditary Hindu Shankhari families have carved conch shell…
Rajshahi silk (রাজশাহী রেশম) is Bangladesh's indigenous mulberry silk tradition — centered on Rajshahi Division in northwestern Bangladesh, where the specific microclimate and the local Morus multicaulis mulberry variety produce a silk…
The making of Bündnerfleisch (Grisons dried beef) — the air-dried cured beef that is the defining preserved meat of Canton Graubünden, produced by salting, spice-curing, and air-drying beef in the specific Alpine wind and temperature…
A collective, plaza-based post-harvest cacao processing tradition from Chuao, a village of roughly 3,000 people on Venezuela's Aragua coast, founded in the 16th century and named by the Carib-speaking indigenous people who first settled it.
The multi-stage processing of bitter cassava root into couac, a coarse, roasted semolina-like flour that is a daily dietary staple across French Guiana's Creole, Amerindian, and Bushinengue (Maroon) communities.
The harvesting and steam-distillation of leaves and twigs from the West Indian bay tree (Pimenta racemosa, locally 'Bwa-Den') into bay oil, a signature Dominican agro-heritage product used since the 19th century in perfumery, most famously…
The hand-kneading, rolling and sun-drying of fragrant wood-powder paste onto bamboo rod cores to make joss sticks.
The chestnut cultivation and processing tradition of Canton Ticino — the management of the historic chestnut forests (Castagneti) that covered the south-facing Ticino valley slopes and provided the primary food staple (chestnut flour for…