But who invented Zellige? Located in the “very ancient melting pot” of the Mediterranean, the three North African countries are disputing the authorship of the colored earthenware tile, with no winner emerging.
In April 2024, Algiers registered zellige, the ornamental ceramic tile, as Algerian intangible heritage on UNESCO’s representative list of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity. A formal file was submitted on April 18 under the title “Art of architectural ornamentation in zellige: knowledge and skills”, which did not fail to arouse some reactions of indignation in Morocco and in Tunisia, two countries that each pride themselves on unique know-how in this area, which, according to them, Algeria lacks.
Rabat and Tunis will thus align the opinions of numerous specialists, but they will need help to claim the art of zellige. Since the Middle Ages, the three territories have been under the influence of the Andalusians and the Turks, past masters in an art whose long history dates back to the Phoenicians. Which would have introduced mosaic tesserae, of which zellige would be a derivative. “The Mediterranean is a very old crucible of exchanges. As proof, obsidian (a volcanic mineral) which came from the Sicilian islands, was found on prehistoric sites in the Maghreb countries. It attests to exchanges in particular with the islands of the central Mediterranean in ancient times,” indicates a researcher from the Tunisian National Heritage Institute (INP).
National pride
The Algerian initiative for zellige has not escaped neighboring countries, which are very vigilant in matters of heritage registration and extremely picky on the issue. To the point of making its attribution a real question of national honor. In a sort of competition modeled on their political differences, each hastens to mark its territory by soliciting several international labels.
For Algeria, the difficulty does not only consist of demonstrating its expertise in zellige. It is technically confronted with a registration, in 2012, of the same ceramic tile by Morocco with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It is therefore difficult to claim exclusive authorship…
The work of dermatologists further confirms that the art of zellige is as well established in Tunisia as in Morocco, which gives them a certain legitimacy to claim this common age-old know-how. But in the current political situation, with Algeria at odds with Morocco, which itself has been at odds with Tunisia, the question of heritage is the least shared thing.
“The abusive appropriation almost has the value of annexation. We deny other countries their contribution, we despoil them and we behave like people hungry for identity, of which intangible heritage is one of the markers”, tackles a craftsman who recalls that certain Tunisian productions, such as the emblematic cage with birds of Sidi Bou Saïd, were patented by… Japan.
Tangible or intangible heritage, or even Memory of the World, are all registers opened by UNESCO to protect the know-how of humanity. However heritage does not necessarily meet the criteria of territorial divisions and borders. Shared, reinterpreted, and declined by humans, it pre-exists political questions. Between rivalry and disagreements, the latter sometimes lead to excesses and denials which are only justified by a form of provocation.
This had already been the case with couscous, which Algeria had presented in 2018 as being a production of its terroir before it was forced, faced with the indignation of its neighbors, to become the leader of a file supported in 2020 by all Maghreb countries – including Mauritania and Libya. “Sicily and Sardinia could also have claimed a share of ownership over couscous,” specifies Sicilian chef Antonino Grammatico, who recalls that couscous is one of the poor man’s dishes which, in various forms, is consumed in everything in the Mediterranean basin.
Collective registration with UNESCO?
These difficulties have meant that UNESCO, in territories as closely linked as those of the Maghreb, now suggests undertaking collectively any registration in one or other of its registers. A way of avoiding confrontations and bickering between countries, as could have been the case between Morocco and Tunisia over the Kitab Al Ibar (The Book of Examples) by the father of sociology, Abderrahmane Ibn Khaldoun (1332- 1406). The Cherifian kingdom had, as early as 2011, the year during which Tunisia was busy with its revolution, registered the fifth volume of Kitab El Ibar in the register of the memory of the world, arguing that the manuscript was in its possession.
This is not surprising since the scholar, a native of Tunis, spent a long time in Fez, where he completed his training with his master Al Abdulli. After some Tunisian intellectuals were surprised by this “appropriation”, Tunis did not take offense at the approach. But in 2024, the country begins the inscription of the Muqaddima, a famous introduction to the book El Ibar, known as The Prolegomena, taking care to associate Egypt, Morocco, and Spain, i.e. -say the countries where Ibn Khaldoun lived, as well as France, which carried out the first translations of this major work.
“It is a guarantee of visibility and success for this initiative,” assures historian Abdelhamid Larguèche, leader of the project, who recalls that Ibn Khaldoun is often presented as a “North African thinker” who, in the tradition of intellectuals of the time, went from one country to another in search of knowledge and the protection of an influential sovereign. “The concept of borders as it exists today did not exist; there were tribes and territories that some wrested from others,” adds an organizer of the exhibition intended for the general public on the life and work of Ibn Khaldoun which marked, in Tunis, the start of the process of registration with Unesco.
