Debates over Egypt’s cultural heritage extend beyond monuments and archaeological objects to food, clothing, music and the traditions people continue to practise. At stake are questions of recognition, historical attribution and the economic value of culture.
The joint inscription of semsemiah crafting and playing by Egypt and Saudi Arabia on UNESCO’s Representative List in December 2024 reignited those concerns. Some Egyptian heritage advocates regard the instrument as distinctly Egyptian and object to sharing its international recognition.
The controversy coincided with Saudi efforts to attract Egyptian artists and grant some of them citizenship, which has fuelled anxieties about the identity and attribution of Egyptian artistic production. It also followed the UAE’s 2022 inscription of Al Talli embroidery skills, another development that prompted criticism in Egypt.
The dispute reveals a tension between a desire to document Egypt’s cultural contribution and the reality that living traditions travel across borders and may belong to more than one community.
Under UNESCO’s 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, inscription is about safeguarding living practices and their transmission between generations. It does not give a state exclusive ownership of a tradition or negate its presence elsewhere. Concerns about appropriation in this report are therefore the sources’ views, not an automatic legal consequence of a joint inscription.
Why recognition matters
Intangible heritage includes practices, expressions, knowledge and skills, together with the associated instruments, objects and cultural spaces. Beyond its contribution to identity and diversity, it has political significance and supports cultural industries. Article 50 of Egypt’s constitution commits the state to safeguarding its material and intangible heritage.
Critics of the semsemiah nomination see the instrument’s ancient roots and its association with resistance in the Suez Canal cities as reasons for a specifically Egyptian file. Questions about how the Culture Ministry presented the announcement intensified debate over the joint nomination.
MP Amira Saber submitted a parliamentary request for information addressed to Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly and Culture Minister Ahmed Hanno, seeking an explanation of the partnership with Saudi Arabia and the measures used to protect Egyptian heritage.
She tells Zawia3 that she considers the semsemiah an Egyptian instrument with roots in ancient times and a close connection to the people of Suez and their struggle against colonialism. No date had been set to discuss her request, she says.
Haitham al-Hag Ali, former head of the General Egyptian Book Organization, believes joint nominations should be used only when necessary. He prefers wider multinational files to a partnership involving just two states, arguing that different forms of a tradition should remain identifiable.
He cites artist Shams al-Etrebi’s work to preserve Sinai dress and the late folklore scholar Ahmed Morsi’s efforts to defend Egyptian traditions. Heritage, he says, provides a foundation for cultural industries and historical evidence that can acquire political significance.
Preparing nomination files requires resources, al-Hag Ali adds, making priorities important in a country with such a wide range of traditions. But he argues that abundance cannot justify neglect and likens surrendering heritage to trafficking in antiquities. That comparison expresses his concern; the two are not automatically the same legal act.
The semsemiah’s roots and journeys
The General Organization of Cultural Palaces links the semsemiah to the ancient Egyptian lyre. A 2021 paper by ethnomusicologist Kawkab Tawfik discusses archaeological antecedents and routes of transmission along the Nile and Red Sea. It does not rule out Nubian or Sudanese migration. Rather, it treats the instrument’s absence from earlier travel accounts as supporting its later arrival in the Canal region and discusses diffusion from Sudan and the Horn of Africa. The Napoleonic expedition preceded the canal’s construction.
Semsemiah player and heritage researcher Amr Rawi also emphasises ancient Egyptian roots, but offers a different account of its arrival in the Canal cities. He doubts the argument that Sudanese workers introduced it during the canal’s excavation, noting that the labour force was predominantly Egyptian and worked under coercive conditions.
Rawi argues that harsh working conditions would have offered little opportunity for music and says no inherited repertoire has reached him reflecting those workers’ suffering. This is his interpretation of the available cultural record, rather than proof that no such musical practice existed.
He believes ancient Egyptian musical technologies influenced neighbouring societies, while the semsemiah’s present form also reflects African cultural exchanges. He points particularly to Bishari and Beja communities moving through Red Sea ports, whose fishing and maritime livelihoods carried instruments and traditions across the region.
Rawi suggests the instrument may have reached the Hijaz during a period of Egyptian rule, carried by Egyptian or African sailors and traders. In his account, its form evolved as it moved between inland and coastal environments.
Early instruments used natural materials, including hollowed wood and animal-gut strings. Sailors sought a lighter instrument that was easier to carry aboard boats and more audible above the sea’s noise. Changes to the soundbox and the replacement of gut with fishing line and then metal strings increased portability and volume.
In his book Nagham al-Bahr—Melodies of the Sea—Rawi highlights the Canal cities’ role in expanding the instrument’s musical range. Local musicians increased the number of strings from five to seven and then nine, allowing more varied melodies suited to celebrations and the area’s national resistance songs.
By the middle of the twentieth century, some instruments had 12 strings or more, making a fuller musical scale possible, he says. He contrasts that development with the more traditional forms he describes in Saudi Arabia.
Al Talli and other contested traditions
The semsemiah is not the only tradition to provoke debate. The UAE’s 2022 inscription of Al Talli surprised Egyptian artists, craftspeople and heritage organisations that had long sought recognition for Egyptian telli work. Some interpreted the delay in Egypt’s own documentation as a diplomatic failure.
In Egypt, telli embroidery uses metallic silver or gold-coloured threads to decorate fabric. It is especially associated with Assiut and Sohag, where women have used it on dresses and bridal veils.
The Emirati nomination describes a braiding practice combining cotton and silver thread. A shared name alone does not establish that the techniques are identical, or that recognising one community’s practice prevents another from documenting its own.
Concerns about cultural attribution also arise over Egyptian films shown on Israeli television, Leila Mourad recordings offered through Israel Music, and the presentation of foods such as falafel. Critics object to detaching these works and practices from their Egyptian context. The sources presented here do not, however, establish the licensing status of each work; its circulation alone does not prove theft.
Some UNESCO examples have likewise been described inaccurately in public debate. The Nasreddin storytelling tradition, related to the broader family of Juha tales familiar in Arab cultures, was inscribed in 2022 through a seven-country nomination: Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Türkiye, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. It was not an award of exclusive Turkish ownership.
Iran and Syria’s inscription of oud making and playing similarly recognises practices in those communities; it does not erase the instrument’s place in Egypt or elsewhere.
Fashion raises related questions. International designers have used Egyptian clothing and motifs, including lotus flowers, scarabs and hieroglyphs. Heritage advocates object when the source goes unacknowledged, although each case requires documentation to distinguish artistic influence from an infringement of rights.
Experts interviewed by Zawia3 see these disputes as part of broader cultural competition with political and economic consequences. A product’s association with a particular place can enhance tourism and cultural industries, giving international recognition commercial as well as symbolic value.
Abdel Hamid Salah al-Sharif, chair of the Egyptian Heritage Rescue Foundation’s board of trustees, sees threats to heritage as a national security concern. He argues that politically and economically motivated attempts to appropriate culture require a proactive response based on understanding the actors involved and working with local partners.
Al-Sharif supports joint recognition when a tradition is genuinely shared. For him, cooperation should preserve the communities’ historical contributions rather than obscure them.
He also stresses heritage’s economic potential and the need to respect intellectual property, while the distinction between those rights and UNESCO inscription remains important.
Why Egypt submitted a joint file
Zawia3 asked Mohamed Shabana, who supervised the semsemiah nomination and serves as rapporteur of the Supreme Council of Culture’s folk arts committee, why Egypt worked with Saudi Arabia.
He says the choice reflected the nomination timetable: in his account, the opportunities for multinational files enabled more frequent submissions than Egypt could make on its own. He cites henna and Arabic calligraphy as earlier examples of cooperation among Arab countries.
Shabana says recognition records the instrument’s presence in each participating country’s heritage. It should not be understood as a certificate of exclusive national ownership.
He affirms the semsemiah’s long history in Egypt but says that does not contradict its presence in Saudi Arabia and Jordan. Related instruments known as tanbura are found in Sudan, Ethiopia and parts of the Gulf, he adds.
For Shabana, small differences between instruments are consistent with cultural diffusion through trade, warfare and maritime routes. That process, he argues, helps explain the semsemiah’s regional spread.
Asked about UNESCO’s English description of some Egyptian practitioners as ship traders—a phrase that drew criticism when rendered as ship brokers—Shabana says he was surprised by the wording. He maintains that the Arabic file he prepared and the English text by Nahla Emam connected the instrument to sea songs in Port Said, Ismailia and Suez and to people working at sea, rather than using the term ship brokers. He attributes the disputed description to a misunderstanding and says he was unable to correct it at that point.
Safeguarding begins with communities
Cairo University cultural anthropology professor Said al-Masry believes limited public awareness is itself a threat to heritage. The term intangible cultural heritage, he says, too often remains confined to specialist circles.
For al-Masry, protection begins by helping people recognise the value of their own traditions and take pride in them. Community participation is essential: initiatives detached from the people who practise and transmit heritage will not achieve their aims.
Al-Sharif supports a comprehensive national documentation project with clear standards developed jointly by specialists and communities. Al-Hag Ali calls for an expert team dedicated to strengthening Egypt’s heritage nominations.
By the end of 2024, Egypt had ten elements on UNESCO’s intangible heritage lists. Individual Egyptian inscriptions included the Al-Sirah Al-Hilaliyyah epic, tahteeb stick games, traditional hand puppetry, handloom weaving in Upper Egypt and festivities associated with the Holy Family’s journey.
Multinational inscriptions included metal engraving, date-palm knowledge and practices, Arabic calligraphy, henna and semsemiah crafting and playing. The challenge for the sources interviewed here is to ensure that international recognition is matched by sustained documentation, support for practitioners and transmission to future generations.
