Sunday, 23 February 2025

Alphabet Soup

 

1964: 2500 Years of Bulgarian Art
A head from the 2nd Century and a 19th Century jug, one predating the Bulgarian Cyrillic alphabet and the other many centuries later.
1980: Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

Percy Bysshe Kelly once said  "We are all Greeks"  Western civilization has it roots in Greece and Hungary remembers their glory. Once the the huge seated figure of Zeus (435BC) stood in his temple at Olympia,  The Hungarians have romanized the famous names of Greece on the map and
1935: Air - Mythologies (Daedalus and Icarus)
it was the Romans who first called the country Greece but to the Greeks it is  Hellas. As can be seen the word written starts with the Greek letter epsilon (originally adopted from the Phoenician letter He -A letter that looks like a capital E with arms pointing left instead of right)

1995: Fish - Queen Angelfish
For something different, Cambodian letters or  Khmer script,. In this script words run together in a sentence. Similar to other colonial powers one can see where the French have been in the past on stamps.
1942: Free French Issue

New Caledonia's unique flightless bird, the Kagu. This 'Free French' stamp was issued to show solidarity with the French resistance and De Gaulle's campaign from London in WW2. There were 14 values and colours produced showing the bird, not in flight, but in a jump display showing off its underwing pattern. 

Sunday Stamps is exploring stamps featuring no English words - See It On A Postcard
 

5 comments:

Mail Adventures said...

I am very partial to anything related to Greek culture :)
But the kagu in the last stamp also caught my eye. I really like the design. Then I have realised I have a couple of those in my collection! :D

viridian said...

Thank you for sharing a variety of stamps!

FinnBadger said...

Great stamps - thanks for introducing me to Khmer script - it looks beautiful

marina said...

So many awesome stamps!! Interesting note about the name of Greece/Hellas. I love the Kagu stamp.

Lisa said...

My favorite is the Greek one. I love your clever title!