Places of Worship

1982-1988 Irish Architecture

This is a church built as a royal chapel for Cormac McCarthy which was consecrated in 1134 and today is called Cormac's Chapel.  Because of a crozier found in his tomb it is thought that Cormac was not only a king but also a bishop.  This Romanesque chapel in County Tipperary can be found on the Rock of Cashel, traditional seat of the kings of Ulster for hundreds of years.

1982-1988 (Drawings Michael Craig; Graphics Peter Wildbur)

A 6th Century Oratorium sits on the uninhabited rocky red granite St MacDara Island off the coast of County Galway.  MacDara is the patron saint of fishermen so every year in July people travel to the island from Carna for mass and a blessing of boats to keep them safe for the coming year. (Seafarers Pilgrimage photos here)

Churches, chapels and monasteries appeared on Brazil's Cultural Heritage definitives of 1986-88

St Lawrence of the Indians church, Sao Roque

St Francis's Monastery, Olinda

St Anthony's Chapel, Sao Roque

When the stamp below was issued in 1925, the illustration was referred to as the "new" Sofia Cathedral.

The gilt domed Alexander Nevsky Cathedral is the largest Eastern Orthodox Cathedral in the world, can hold 10,000 people and is also a symbol of the city.  Construction started in 1882 and was completed in 1912.

The oldest of the structures featured on my stamps today is

1931-41: Land and People

the square minaret of the Grand Mosque in Tunis which was built in 732. 

Lastly is a church with a beautiful view of Lake Lugano, the church of San Georgio Castagnola. In the background is Monte San Salvatore where you can ride a funicular to the top and find a 80m high TV tower and from whose viewing platform one can enjoy a 360 degree vista of lake, land and mountains.

An entry to Sunday Stamps II theme - Places of worship - pray visit See It On A Postcard

No Pictures, Possibly

If when browsing some Channel Island stamps a few weeks ago I had purchased Jersey's Magna Carta issue featuring one word, this week's Sunday Stamps II theme would have been a breeze. As I didn't there was a long browse through my collection of stamps, although because I have very few Brazilian stamps I  remembered the one above.  Where would we all have been without learning our ABC?  I always remember singing it at school, perhaps they do the same in Brazil. The stamp was issued in 2005 for Teacher's Day.  Maybe some of the pupils dream of becoming engineers

 and this stamp celebrates the 50th Anniversary of the Royal Flemish Association of Engineers, the KVIV. It was designed by someone whose surname I imagine took him a long time to write when he was learning his ABC - Emile Vandemeulebroucke.  Of course engineers need their mathematics so lets turn to numbers

and the ones use for post codes. This stamp was issued in 1966 for Austria's introduction of the Postal Code System and shows a postal zone map.  They use a four figure number, the first (the one shown on the stamp) is the geographic delivery area (1 being for Vienna etc).  The full set of numbers would also include a second number for the routing area, the third is the route the mail takes by truck or train and the fourth the post office outlet and the routing city.

Something not seen anymore is the postage due stamp which can be quite plain but not in the case of Czechoslovakia who produced some beautifully designed postage due stamps over the decades and I have chosen this one

used from 1946-1953 which they following in

1954 by this design.  They used two of their great stamp engravers for these intricate designs, Bohan Roule (1921-1960) for this and

Jiri Antonin Svengsbir (1921-1983) for the higher values.  I'm counting the area around the number as decoration to get round the "no pictures" guideline. Yikes don't mention the map otherwise I would not have been able to make an (unintentional) ABC of countries. 

An entry to Sunday Stamps II theme - Words and/or Numbers (no pictures) - more alphanumerics here
  

Whose A Pretty Boy Then

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The teeming life of the Amazon forest was the subject of a miniature sheet this year in the UK so I thought I would link it to this weeks Sunday Stamps location of South America and my choice is the country of Brazil.  The hyacinth macaw sits on one of the top stamps and

in real life they like to nest high up in dead trees into which they gnaw a nesting hole.  These two look wonderful on the branch against the Amazon sky,

This 2001 joint WWF and Brazilian Postal Service stamp issue shows various species of Psittacidae (the parrot family) in their favourite habitat painted by the wildlife artist Etienne Edmonle and in this instance made into maximum cards.

This one of the Yellow-faced Amazon parrot shows the stamp cancellation more clearly.  Brazil is home to a fifth of the worlds parrots, they must be one of the most fascinating species and in some instances most spectacular.

The Jendaya golden-capped conure

Blue-chested Parakeet

All the birds chosen for the stamps are threatened by destruction of their habitat and also targets of illegal wildlife trade. The  illegal parrot trade increases the risk of extinction of some species, hence post office plea, "collect stamps not parrots". 

An entry to Sunday Stamps