For centuries, Aragoz, a glove puppet with large eyes and a thin black mustache, has criticized Egyptian governments and mocked social institutions from marriage to parenthood in his metallic voice. This insolent puppet, with a conical cap placed on his wooden head, has given its name to Egypt’s traditional mobile puppet theater.
Though it enjoys a similar name to Turkey’s shadow play of Karagoz and Greece’s Karagiozis, the Aragoz is now registered under Egypt’s intangible heritage, under a Nov. 26 decision made by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to include it in the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding. The decision was taken unanimously during the 13th session of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, which began Nov. 26 and concluded Dec. 1.
