New stamps from India - UNESCO World Heritage Sites in India

 UNESCO World Heritage Sites in India-III  

 Cultural Sites

On 15th August 2020. a set of commemorative postage stamps and a Miniature Sheet on UNESCO World Heritage Sites in India-III  was issued by India Post.

New UNESCO stamps from France..

 

 

In the month of  November, the French National Post Office released two new UNESCO stamps.One stamp (shown above)  calls attention to the endangered red-crowned crane (Grusjaponensis), and the need to protect this species. In Japan, the crane, known as the “tancho,” is a powerful national symbol, representing longevity and immortality.

 

The second stamp features the Ancient City of Sigiriya (Sri Lanka), a UNESCO World Heritage site, where one can wind through ancient galleries and staircases, and out through the mouth of a gigantic lion. The “Lion Mountain” is a unique witness to the civilization of Ceylon during the years of the reign of Kassapa I. Its frescoes inaugurated a pictorial style which endured over many centuries. Poems inscribed on the rock, known as “Sigiri graffiti,” are among the most ancient texts in the Sinhalese language. They attest to the considerable influence that Sigiriya exerted on both literature and thought.

 

My Recent Cover

Cover from  Latvia : Winter Holidays

Thanks to Limanski EN, Riga – Latvia

 

Cover from Poland

Thanks to Andrzej Bek, Poland

New stamp on Rainbow..

 

Date of Issue : 7 June 2013

Hi !

Here is a beautiful stamp to be issued by San Marino Post on June 7. The beautiful stamp issue will  commemorate  the inauguration of a Nursery school in Malawi – Matola. But in the design the stamp also features a symbolic  Umbrella Rainbow  and colors of the Rainbow.This stamp is a nice item for my Rainbow collection.

Inauguration of the nursery school in Malawi-Matola 

The philatelic set dedicated to the inauguration of the nursery school with a refectory in Malawi-Matola celebrates the solidarity of the people of San Marino put in action by the San Marino for the Children Onlus Association. The 0.10€ value designed by Maddalena Medas depicts two children protected by a symbolic umbrella with the map of Africa and the colours of the rainbow. The 0.70€ stamp designed by Ladabox.com shows a picture taken on the occasion of the inauguration on the 23^rd February 2013.

UNESCO City of World Literature

On 16 May 2013, An Post issued a stamp to commemorate Dublin UNESCO City of World Literature. The  stamp  features a story about Dublin written by Eoin Moore.

When the city of Dublin was nominated UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) City of Literature in July 2010, the capital of Ireland became just the fourth city to be honoured, following in the footsteps of Edinburgh, Scotland (2004), and Melbourne, Australia and Iowa City, USA (2008).

This acknowledgement while most gratifying, was hardly surprising. Stop a stranger on the street almost anywhere in the world and ask which world city do they most associate with literature and chances are they will say Dublin.

The city on the Liffey lays claim to no fewer than three Nobel Prize winners for Literature: George Bernard Shaw, W.B. Yeats and Samuel Beckett. Other literary luminaries who have called Dublin home include Jonathan Swift, Oscar Wilde, Sean O’Casey, Flann O’Brien, Brendan Behan and James Joyce. More recently, the list of Dublin-based scribes  has lengthened considerably. The names of Roddy Doyle, John Banville, Anne Enright, Sebastian Barry and Joseph O’Connor have helped ensure that Dublin’s rich literary tradition continues to flourish. Authors abound in one of the world’s most literary cities.

The UNESCO designation – which is on a permanent basis – recognises the quality, quantity and diversity of Dublin’s many excellent libraries, publishing houses and booksellers, as well as its world-acclaimed writers. Some of the other criteria for the designation include having literary-focused educational programmes, experience in staging literary events and festivals, the role played by literature in the urban environment, and the active involvement of the media in promoting literature and growing the market for literary products.

World Heritage – Africa

 

On 5 September 2012, UNPA  issued a set of six commemorative stamps in denominations of US$ 0.45, US$ 1.05, CHF 0.85, CHF 1.00, € 0.62 and € 0.70, on the theme " World Heritage – Africa ".

Heritage is our legacy from the past, what we live with today, and what we pass on to future generations. Our cultural heritage and our natural heritage are both irreplaceable sources of life and inspiration. What makes the concept of World Heritage exceptional is its universal application. World Heritage sites belong to all the peoples of the world, irrespective of the territory on which they are located.

 

   

Date of Issue : 5 September 2012

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) seeks to encourage the identification, protection and preservation of cultural and natural heritage around the world considered to be of outstanding value to humanity. This is embodied in an international treaty called the Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, adopted by UNESCO in 1972. For this year's stamp series, the United Nations Postal Administration (UNPA) has chosen six World Heritage sites in Africa.

    

 

 

 

 

World Championship of Karate …

 

La Poste de France issued a souvenir sheet of three stamps on the occasion of the World Championship of karate, which will be held from 21 to 25 of November 2012 in Paris, Bercy.

The souvenir sheet was made in Manga style. The left stamp depicts a young girl making a Mawashi Geri, the right stamp features a young boy making a Yoko Tobi Geri and the central stamp takes a visual of a stylized Eiffel Tower, symbol of Paris.

 

Stamps on ‘ WORLD HERITAGE ’

The Limes: Frontiers of Roman Empire in Germany

 

Germany issued a Souvenir Sheet in 2007 to commemorate the Limes under its series of World Cultural Heritage. The 550 km track of the Roman Frontier in Germany from Danube River to the North West Germany is depicted in the map in this Souvenir Sheet. The stamp area depicts one of the fortified gates of the Limes.

The Latin noun ‘limes’ had a number of different meanings: a path or balk delimiting fields, a boundary line or marker, any road or path, any channel, such as a stream channel, or any distinction or difference. But the word ‘limes’ was utilized by Latin writers to denote a marked or fortified frontier

The ‘Roman Limes’ represents the border line of the Roman Empire at its greatest extent in the 2nd century AD. It stretched over 5,000 km from the Atlantic coast of northern Britain, through Europe to the Black Sea, and from there to the Red Sea and across North Africa to the Atlantic coast. The remains of the Limes today consist of vestiges of built walls, ditches, forts, fortresses, watchtowers and civilian settlements. Certain elements of the line have been excavated, some reconstructed and a few destroyed. The two sections of the Limes in Germany cover a length of 550 km from the north-west of the country to the Danube in the south-east.

At its height the Roman Empire extended into three continents. Its borders reflected the waxing and waning of power over more than millennia. In what is now Germany there were several military campaigns into the area north of the Alps and east of the River Rhine from 55/53 BC to 15-16 AD, but the area was not brought under direct control until around 85 AD when the oldest part of the Limes was created between the River Rhine and the high Taunus Mountains. This frontier followed the contours of the landscape. Later the courses defined were much straighter and the first forts established. Similarly in the area of the Raetian Limes the border was secured first under Emperor Claudius (41-54 AD), probably moved north across the river under the Emperor Domitian, and then under Emperor Trajan forts were established.

The early Limes barrier seems to have been a cleared stretch of forest monitored by wooden towers. Under the Emperor Hadrian (117-138 AD) the Limes was additionally secured with a palisade fence. In the 2nd century AD the Limes was in part straightened, and also strengthened with embankments or stone walls and numerous forts, and fort lets.

- Pradeep Kumar Mallik, Patna

email : mallikphila@gmail.com

 

Stamps on ‘WORLD HERITAGE’

 

Natural System of Wrangel Island Reserve (RUSSIA)

‘Natural System of Wrangel Island Reserve’ was included in the World Heritage List of UNESCO in 2004. It is the most northern located World Heritage Site. Wrangel Island (7608 sq. km.) is located about 500 km north of the Arctic Circle, at the intersection of Western and Eastern hemispheres, it is separated from the Russian mainland by the Strait of Long.

Russia 2012

A fragment of the landscape of Wrangel Island is beautifully depicted on the S/S, printed partially offset and partially lacquer paint stencil technique, issued on 27^th February 2012.

The site includes the mountainous Wrangel Island, Herald Island (11 sq. km.), located 70 km east, and surrounding waters. Wrangel was not glaciated during the Quaternary Ice Age, resulting in exceptionally high levels of biodiversity for this region. The island boasts the world’s largest population of Pacific walrus and the highest density of ancestral polar bear dens. It is a major feeding ground for the grey whale migrating from Mexico and the northernmost nesting ground for 100 migratory bird species, many endangered. Currently, 417 species and subspecies of vascular plants have been identified on the island, double that of any other Arctic tundra territory of comparable size and more than any other Arctic island. Some species are derivative of widespread continental forms, others are the result of recent hybridization, and 23 are endemic.

-  Pradeep Kumar Mallick, Patna

email : mallikphila@gmail.com