Luxembourg Requests Inclusion on UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List for Dry Stone Walling

Luxembourg’s Ministry of Culture recently announced that the Grand Duchy, alongside Andorra, Austria, Belgium and Ireland, officially requested to join other European countries on the multinational inscription of the art of dry stone walling on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

Representatives of Croatia, Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Slovenia, Spain and Switzerland, in addition to the above-mentioned states (totalling thirteen countries), met on 29 March 2023 at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris to sign and officially submit their application. UNESCO will evaluate the latter as part of a procedure that will last more than a year, with the decision’s announcement scheduled for the end of 2024.

The thirteen countries worked together on preparing the multinational nomination file, in consultation with the promoters of dry stone walling, relevant experts, NGOs and public bodies, who, according to Luxembourg’s Culture Ministry, are collectively looking to obtain additional international recognition of this key element of living heritage and are committed to working together to safeguard this practice for future generations. The UNESCO Representative List is intended to promote visibility, awareness, protection and appreciation of the diversity of cultural heritage at the international level.

Dry stone construction is the practice of building in stone without the use of mortar or other binding material. An innate understanding of geometry and gravity is required, along with skills that develop over many years of manipulating the raw material that communities scavenge from their immediate surroundings. Dry stone construction is achieved through careful selection and arrangement of stones to ensure the structure’s long-term stability and its adaptation to the local terrain. A few simple tools are necessary to practice this trade: a hammer, a steel bar, a pick, a shovel and a chalk line.

Luxembourg’s Culture Ministry recalled that dry stone construction is a sustainable practice closely linked to many aspects of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including industry, innovation and sustainable infrastructure, sustainable cities and communities, life on land and as a direct contributor to the protection of biodiversity.

In Luxembourg, the traditional know-how of dry stone construction (Konscht vum Dréchemauerbauen) has been listed in the national inventory of intangible cultural heritage since 28 November 2018.

The UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage was established in 2003 to safeguard and raise awareness about intangible cultural heritage at local, national and international levels. Intangible cultural heritage refers to the customs, traditions, crafts, games and practices that are part of people's lives and identities, both individually and as part of larger communities, which are transmitted from generation to generation.