Greece Adds 19 Customs and Traditions to Cultural Heritage List

Patras Carnival 2024. Photo source: Patras Carnival

The Greek Culture Ministry announced this week that it had added 19 traditions and customs to the National Index of Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Applications for inclusion on the index, which comes under UNESCO’s Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, were submitted in 2022.

“The addition of 19 new elements on the National Index of Intangible Cultural Heritage is one more important step towards the protection and promotion our collective identity. The data includes the ‘footprint’ of people over time… the experience, knowledge, skills, ingenuity, creativity and emotion of our people as they manifest in various places, constituting mosaics of our national self-consciousness,” said Culture Minister Lina Mendoni commenting on the news.

“The intangible cultural heritage of Greece bears deep traces of a rich and unexplored past. At the same time, it is a live tradition, a living element of our culture,” she added.

Traditional Cretan instrument named “Lyra” used to play Rizitika songs as well as folklore. Photo source: Crete Region

Greece regularly renews the index adding new items. Local communities and culture organizations can submit their bids for inclusion in January every year following a relevant announcement.

This year’s additions include the Patra Carnival, the “Rizitika” folk songs of Western Crete, the winemaking traditions of Rapsani, Limnos, and Metsovo, the pottery tradition of Margarites in Rethymno, Crete, the traditional straw broom making traditions of Faros – Lighthouse for the Blind, and the famous Kalamatianos dance.

“The index offers local communities the opportunity to highlight the elements they consider important for their identity. Inclusion is only a single step fostering cooperation of local governments, academia, and, above all, the communities themselves as actors for the elaboration and implementation of policies aimed at preserving the traditions and passing them on to the next generations,” said Mendoni.