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The Pusol School Museum is one of the most surprising entries on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. The hamlet, with around 350 inhabitants, is one of more than twenty smaller communities governed by Elche. In the sleepy agricultural area surrounding the large city, Pusol’s local school took its first steps in 1969 with a simple school project that, exactly forty years later, resulted in Elche's third listing on the prestigious UNESCO list.
Fast forward to the present. The museum has long been housed in a much larger facility and boasts a dizzying collection of 90,000 objects. During a tour of the museum, one can see not only these old objects but also complete reconstructions of old workers' homes and countless displays of old professions. Even entire shops from a bygone era have been carefully recreated. In workshops, nearly lost crafts such as esparto grass weaving, chair stringing, and white palm leaf weaving are brought back to life. There’s even a wood-fired oven where traditional dishes are prepared.
It all started with a teacher who presented the educational project "the school and its surroundings" to the students. Broadly speaking, it aimed to teach students about the historical crafts and traditions of Elche’s agricultural region. The goal was to create teaching material that provided insight into a way of life while also encouraging the preservation of this culture, both tangible and intangible. The idea behind it was that old methods were quickly disappearing due to the mechanization of agriculture, and traditional crafts were giving way to less labor-intensive work.
At a time when UNESCO is openly questioning whether Australia's Great Barrier Reef still deserves a place on its World Heritage List—given that much of its colorful coral has disappeared due to ocean warming—it is heartwarming that Pusol's small village school can continue to boast international recognition for its work.
Thus, the museum is a classic example of a school project that happily spiraled out of control.
