The Intangible Cultural Heritage

• The intangible cultural heritage can be visible in the following domains:

 Oral traditions, oral histories and expressions including language, storytelling,

literature and mythology.

 Knowledge and practices concerning customs, cosmology, spiritual beliefs,

traditional system of healing and pharmacopoeia, religion, traditional means
of conflict resolution, nature and the universe.

 Traditional craftsmanship including vernacular architecture, the culinary arts

and all kinds of special skills connected with the material aspects of culture
such as tools and habitat.

 Social practices, rituals and festive events.

 Performing arts.

The UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List was established in 2008 when the
2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage took
effect with the aim of ensuring better protection of important intangible cultural
heritages worldwide and the awareness of their significance.

As of 2010 the program compiles two lists. The longer, Representative List of the
Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, comprises cultural "practices and
expressions [that] help demonstrate the diversity of this heritage and raise awareness
about its importance." The shorter, List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need
of Urgent Safeguarding, is composed of those cultural elements that concerned
communities and countries consider to require urgent measures to keep them alive.
As of February 2023, both lists combined totaled 678 elements from 140 countries.
(The list for 2024 is under process)

Egyptian Elements on the UNESCO List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage

1- Arts, skills and practices associated with engraving on metals (gold, silver and
copper) (RL)
2- Date palm, 2022 (RL)
3- Festivals related to the Holy Family’s journey
in Egypt, 2022 (RL)
4- Arabic Calligraphy, 2021 (RL)
5- Handmade weaving, Upper Egypt, 2020
(USL)
6- Traditional Hand puppetry, 2018 (USL)
7- Tahtib Stick game, 2016 (RL)
8- Al-Sirah Al-Hilaliyah Epic, 2008 (RL)

Folklore
Every culture has its own unique folklore which distinguishes its society.
Folklore is made of two words: folk, which means regional people, and lore, which
means stories. Therefore, folklore reflects stories told by people in a particular
region. Folklore can define a population’s values, beliefs, and preferred way of life
with its literary themes.
Folklore was passed down from earlier generations, who told the stories verbally.
Each generation would then tell their own children, and these stories became part
of a culture’s tradition. The invention of the printing press allowed these stories to
be published and shared with the world.

Types of Folklore

 Material culture: folk art, vernacular architecture, textiles, modified mass-

produced objects.

 Music: traditional, folk, and world music.

 Narrative: legends, urban legends, fairy tales, folk tales, personal

experience narratives.

 Verbal art: jokes, proverbs, word games.

 Belief and religion: folk religion, ritual and mythology.

 Foodways: traditional cooking

and relationships between people and culture.

Umm Terter

The story goes back to a woman who is named "Nafusa“.

She lived at Karmose district in Alexandria. She was
married to a coachman whose name is Alwan Abu
Ismail. She had two sons and a daughter and never bore a
daughter or a son named “Terter”. The reason behind
calling her "Umm Terter“ is that she used to wear shiny
clothes full of sequins.

It is said that she was known among her neighbors for

being bad-tempered and irritable. She was rude to her
neighbors whom she mocked all the time and she was
always ready to quarrel.

Her neighbors were raising chickens, roosters and geese on the roofs of their houses.
The roosters usually jump from their roofs to Umm Tarter’s house which was way
shorter than the other houses. Umm Terter only raised chickens on her roof to attract
her neighbor’s roosters.

Once the roosters or chickens were trapped, she would take them immediately and
cook them as dinner for her and her husband. The story mentions that "Umm Terter"
had the superior ability to hide all traces of her slaughtering of the fallen chickens
and roosters by getting rid of feathers and smell. If a neighbor asked her about a
missing chicken or rooster, she would raise her voice to them and start a fight.
Consequently, her neighbors stopped to ask her about their missing chickens and
roosters and when a chicken or a rooster disappear, people tell its owner "May God
compensate you, this is with Umm Terter" which means you will never get it back,
it was lost forever.
Sayed Qeshta/‫سيد قشطة‬

The hippopotamus is a large mammal that lives in

Africa and usually eats plants. The word
hippopotamus is derived from the Greek word
“hippo” which means “horse” and “potamus”
which means “river”. Thus, the word
hippopotamus is translated as “river horse”,
although they aren’t closely related to horses.

It is the second heaviest animal after the elephant.

It is also a semi-aquatic creature who can live
between land and water, however, the females should give birth in the water.

Hippopotamus is known in Arabic as ‫فرس النهر‬.

The Egyptians used a strange and unique name to refer to this animal. This name is
‫سيد قشطة‬.

It is worthy here to mention that this name is used to refer to all hippopotami.
Moreover, this name is used only in Egypt and it is not familiar in any Arab country.

During the reign of Khedive Tawfik, the Giza Zoo received its first hippopotamus.
The zoo guard who was responsible for taking care of the hippopotamus chose the
name “Sayed” to refer to this animal in order to encourage the visitors to see and
play with the hippopotamus since this name was familiar during this time.

The zoo guard pampered the hippopotamus and feed it the Annona fruit daily as a
kind of reward. The animal became addicted to this fruit and ate large quantities.
Later, his name as “Sayed” was linked to this fruit to be known as ‫سيد قشطة‬.
Hippos are known in Egypt since ancient times and they used to live by the Nile
river banks. Although this animal was common on the banks of the Nile River in
Egypt, its numbers declined and eventually disappeared due to many factors. These
factors include poaching for its skin, ivory and bones under the pretense of
threatening the crops. The last documentation of its presence in southern Egypt and
northern Sudan dates back to the early nineteenth century (about 1816).

Range map of the African hippopotamus.

Historic range is in red while current range
is in green.