A male artisan kneels at the edge of a raw clay extraction pit in Kom Oshim, Fayoum, manually collecting wet clay from the flooded pit as part of the traditional pottery-making process. The clay at this stage is unprocessed and mixed with water before being shaped on the potter's wheel and fired in kilns. Pottery in Kom Oshim is an inherited craft passed down through generations, representing one of Egypt's living intangible cultural heritage traditions.