Home Intangible Cultural Heritage Intangible Cultural Heritage in Turkey Traditional Ahlat Stonework
  • Traditional Ahlat Stonework

  • Traditional Ahlat Stonework

    Traditional Ahlat stonework refers to the body of knowledge, methods, and skills involved in the extraction of Ahlat volcanic stones and their use in sculptures and structures. These stones are extracted by miners from the foothills of the Mountain Nemrut in Turkey, and it is used in architecture such as houses and mosques, in addition to their use in building tombstones, fountains and other pieces of art.
    This practice has been passed down from generation to generation for centuries, but its viability faced serious threats in the past decades, due to demographic changes and the difficulty of finding new apprentices due to the sharp decline in population and migration to large cities, in addition to the widespread use of modern building techniques and materials in the region.
    Traditional Ahlat Stonework was inscribed in 2022 on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in Turkey.
    Intangible Heritage
    by Dosseman, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
    by Dosseman, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
    by Dosseman, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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    Traditional Ahlat Stonework

    Date of Inscription

    2022