France · Fiber craft; Maritime heritage; Atlantic coast tradition
Corderie Maritime de la Côte Atlantique
The making of maritime rope from hemp (chanvre) or sisal by traditional cable-laying — twisting individual yarns into strands and strands into rope in alternating twist directions to create a self-tightening structure under load. La Rochelle and the Atlantic coast had major corderies (rope walks) supplying the French navy from the 17th century. The traditional rope walk required a straight building of 200–300 meters to allow full rope cable laying.
Risk level: Endangered · Not listed
Freehand-painted earthenware with opaque tin glaze, decorated with Breton peasant figures and quimperoise floral borders.
Cut-pile knotted carpet woven on a vertical high-warp loom using the Ghiordes (Turkish) knot, following a painted cartoon.
The heritage craft techniques underlying Michelin tyre production — specifically the manual construction and vulcanization skills that preceded and in specialist applications still accompany industrial production.
The making and restoration of precision mechanical watches and clocks in the Paris tradition — historically distinct from the Swiss tradition in its emphasis on decorative arts integration (enamel dials; engraved cases; guilloché…
Black-ground embroidery in white cotton and gold thread for the elaborate Bigouden traditional costume, including the iconic coiffe bigoudène headdress — one of the tallest in Brittany.
The management of the volcanic mineral water sources of Vichy — the thermal capital of France — including the maintenance of the source galleries; the seasonal collection of specific waters from different springs (each with distinct…
The Tao tatala is one of the most extraordinary craft objects in the Pacific — an outrigger fishing canoe assembled from 27 individually carved wooden planks joined without nails or caulking, held together only by wooden pins and the…
The building of traditional wooden boats in the Basque Country — from the trainera (the traditional Basque rowing regatta boat, built from American oak using a specific longitudinal planking sequence) to the goleta (the Basque schooner…
The hand-knotting and repair of fishing nets in the Basque tradition — a craft that sustained the largest deep-sea fishing fleet in medieval Europe (the Basque cod fishermen of Newfoundland; the whalers of the Bay of Biscay; the tuna…
The hand-construction of traditional wooden dhows at the Dhow Building Yard in Muharraq, near Fisherman's Port, directly and specifically documented as the oldest and only remaining dhow building yard in Bahrain -- a precisely stated…
The hand-construction of dhows, traditional single- or double-masted Arab sailing vessels, by shipwrights of the United Arab Emirates working without blueprints, using knowledge and skill transmitted directly from one generation to the…
The specialized breath-hold free-diving technique and associated equipment used by Emirati pearl divers (ghais) to harvest oyster beds from the seabed of the Arabian Gulf, historically the economic foundation of Emirati coastal society…