Mongolia · Architectural Craft / Wood Construction
хана (Khana)
The khana (хана) is the folding lattice wall panel that forms the structural sidewall of a Mongolian ger — the most engineered component of the world's most sophisticated demountable dwelling system. Each khana panel is made from willow or poplar laths crossed at a fixed angle and pinned at every intersection with a leather thong rivet — the crossing angle determining the panel's expansion ratio and the ger's final diameter. The critical technical knowledge is the crossing angle calibration: khana laths crossed at approximately 60 degrees produce the standard Mongolian ger wall height when expanded to working diameter — a mathematical relationship held in the craftsman's body knowledge, not calculated. The test: a correctly crossed khana, when expanded until the laths are taut, produces a wall of exactly the height at which the uni roof poles create the correct slope for rain and snow shedding. Everything depends on the angle.
Risk level: Endangered · Mongolian Ger and its associated customs — UNESCO Representative List (2013)
The painting of Buddhist devotional scroll images (thangka) in a distinctly Mongolian visual style that developed rapidly from the 18th century onward and achieved a recognizably independent regional idiom by the early 20th century,…
The making of the morin khuur — the two-stringed, horse-head-carved bowed fiddle considered Mongolia's national instrument and, since 2003, recognized by UNESCO as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.
The deel (дээл) is the Mongolian wrapped robe worn by both men and women — the primary garment of nomadic life, adapted across four seasonal specifications (summer cotton, spring/autumn quilted, winter sheepskin, ceremonial silk) that…
Tsam (цам) is the Mongolian Buddhist masked ritual dance tradition performed at monasteries — the Mongolian expression of the Cham masked dance found across the Himalayan Buddhist world.
The Mongolian num (нум) — the composite recurve bow — is the most technically complex portable object in the nomadic craft vocabulary: a laminated structure of wood core, sinew backing, and horn belly that stores and releases energy more…
The khökhüür (хөхүүр) is the Mongolian leather vessel used for the production and storage of airag — fermented mare's milk, the central beverage and ritual substance of Mongolian nomadic life.
The brewing cask cooperage tradition of Burton-on-Trent — the English brewing capital whose specific mineral-rich water and the oak casks in which beer was stored and transported created the Burton Ale tradition that defined 19th-century…
The Danish horn working tradition — the making of functional and decorative objects from animal horn (cattle, ox, and aurochs horn) that spans from the Bronze Age Lurs (the twin curved bronze horns) through Viking Age drinking vessels to…
The Swedish träskor (wooden clog) tradition — the making of the distinctive Swedish wooden-soled, leather-upper clog that differs from the Dutch all-wood klompen (CRAFT-1382) by using an alder wood sole with a leather upper, producing a…
Kim Bong carpentry village sits across the Thu Bon River from Hoi An — and its woodworking tradition, active since the 15th century, supplied the artisans who built the ancient town of Hoi An and its extraordinary layered architecture.
The Telemark woodcarving tradition — the distinctive Norwegian acanthus (akantus) carving style that decorates Norwegian furniture, house portals, and household objects with a flowing, continuous vine and leaf motif derived from the…
The Copenhagen master cabinetmakers (møbelsnedkere) whose workshops made much of the hand-built furniture of Danish modernism.