At its 13th session, held in Port Louis, Mauritius, on Wednesday, 28 November 2018, UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage inscribed the multinational nomination Art of Dry Stone Walling: Knowledge and Techniques on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The Slovene Ethnographic Museum, acting as the Coordinator for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (Anja Jerin, Nena Židov), also participated in the preparation of the nomination file.

At the 19th session of UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, held from 2 to 7 December 2024 in Asunción, Paraguay, the extension of the already inscribed element Art of Dry Stone Walling: Knowledge and Techniques, originally inscribed on the Representative List in 2018, was also approved. Eight countries initially participated in the nomination (Croatia, Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Slovenia, Spain and Switzerland). At the 2024 session, Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Ireland and Luxembourg joined the multinational nomination.

Dry stone walling is the craft of building without the use of mortar. By selecting and arranging locally available stone—obtained through clearing and preparing land—and with an understanding of structural principles, various types of durable stone structures are created.