UNESCO honors Syria's famous handmade soap

Aleppo soap is considered the most ecological soap and is recommended for babies. Instead of animal fats, Aleppo soap is made from olive oil and bay leaf oil.

On December 3, the United Nations Educational , Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) decided to include the famous handmade soap of Aleppo city, Syria on the list of intangible cultural heritage, in the context of Syria's second city once again being devastated by conflict.

According to UNESCO, craftsmen make the product using 3,000-year-old “traditional knowledge and skills,” relying on a combination of natural, locally produced ingredients and a drying process that can take up to nine months.

Assessing the essentiality of soap to communities here, UNESCO said "the collaborative production process promotes community and family cohesion."

Despite its rough appearance, Aleppo soap is considered the most ecological soap and is recommended for use on babies. Instead of animal fats, Aleppo soap is made from olive oil and bay leaf oil.

In particular, Aleppo soap requires a lot of processing time: 3 days to cook the oil mixture into soap, but it takes 9-12 months to dry.

Before the conflict in Syria, soap production in Aleppo was an important industry in Syria, with an output of 20,000 tons/year in 2010.

However, the fighting has caused soap production to plummet to just a few dozen tons per year. The conflict has also scattered producers.

Of the 100 soap factories in the city, only about 10 remain in operation, many have moved to Damascus or neighboring Türkiye which has similar climatic conditions for production, but they are also facing high production costs.

Recent violence has also raised concerns about the impact on the city's newly recovering economy .

In addition to soap operas, Al-Qudoud al-Halabiya, a traditional musical genre of Aleppo, is also on UNESCO's list of intangible cultural heritage.

The city of Aleppo itself was recognized as a world heritage site in 1986 - and was put on the list of endangered heritage sites in 2013 amid the prolonged conflict./.

(TTXVN/Vietnam+)

Source: https://www.vietnamplus.vn/unesco-vinh-danh-xa-phong-thu-cong-noi-tieng-cua-syria-post999068.vnp