Moroccan craft is organised around raw materials — wool, leather, wood, wicker, esparto, clay, stone, marble, copper, iron, silver, gold — and around workshop-cities where these materials have been transformed for centuries.
Each region has its own language. Fès holds leather, copper, zellige, silk-and-gold brocade. Marrakech gathers carpets, tadelakt, basketry, leather and copper. Essaouira keeps thuya wood, silver filigree and blown glass. Safi and Salé are the capitals of pottery. Tiznit and the Souss remain the strongholds of Berber silver jewellery. Meknès is the only city where damascening, the art of steel engraving, survives.
This page offers a systematic reading: sixteen branches documented one by one, with their history, technique, regions, masters and — when the element is inscribed — its UNESCO recognition.
i. Working the materials
The branches are classically grouped into five universes of material: decoration (carpets, pottery, utensils), clothing (caftan, djellaba, embroidery, babouches), furniture (carved wood, copper, wrought iron), architecture (zellige, plaster, tadelakt) and traditional gastronomy (argan oil, amlou, saffron, smen). Each follows its own codes — tools, vocabulary, hierarchy — passed down in urban guilds (the hanta) or within the family circle.