Traditional Japanese washoku cooking methods, millennia-old Georgian wine-making techniques and the Mediterranean diet are among 14 new entries added to UNESCO's list of "intangible heritage" in need of being preserved.
Envoys picked the new listings at a meeting in the Azerbaijani capital Baku, UNESCO said in a statement late on Wednesday.
They include the traditional use of the abacus for counting in China and a Christian festival in the French region of Limousin that involves holy relics being paraded before worshippers once every seven years.
Other additions are Belgian horseback shrimp fishing, the annual pilgrimage to the mausoleum of Sidi Abd el-Qader Ben Mohammed in Algeria, Taureg imzad music, jamdani weaving in Bangladesh and the Cirio de Nazare religious festival in Brazil.
The list also contains sankirtana music from the Vaishnava people in India, a central Italian Catholic procession, an Orthodox holiday in Ethiopia and a Kyrgyz epic poem.
Mongolian calligraphy and a naming tradition common among the people of Western Uganda also made the list earlier on Wednesday, AFP reports.
Established in 2008, the Intangible Cultural Heritage list of about 100 traditional events from around the globe is designed to help demonstrate the diversity of this heritage and raise awareness about its importance.
