History Extra
Royal Mail has released eight stamps featuring objects and sites of British prehistory, celebrating Britain's “incredibly rich heritage of prehistoric sites and exceptional artefacts”
A number of sites and treasures of prehistoric Britain have been featured in a new set of eight stamps from Royal Mail. Sites included on the stamps are Skara Brae village, where fierce storms in 1850 stripped away sand dunes on Orkney’s west coast to reveal traces of Neolithic stone-walled houses, and Avebury stone circles, Britain’s largest prehistoric ceremonial monument.
Illustrated by London-based artist Rebecca Strickson, the stamps have been designed as overlay illustrations, detailing how people lived and worked at these sites and used the objects. Strickson said: “This period in time has long been a fascination to me, and stamp collecting was something my late father adored in his youth. That these stamps are coming out on what would have been his 68th birthday makes me really smile.”
Philip Parker explained that the collection aims to “explore some of these treasures and give us a glimpse of everyday life in prehistoric Great Britain and Northern Ireland, from the culture of ancient ritual and music making to sophisticated metalworking and the building of huge hill forts”.
For each of the stamps, Royal Mail will provide a special postmark on all mail posted in a postbox close to where the site is located or the artefact found. It will be applied for five days from 17-21 January 2017, and stamps are available from 17 January 2017, at 7,000 Post Office branches across the UK and at www.royalmail.com/ancientbritain.
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