Stories in Stamps

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 255, 24 July 1937, Page 9 (Supplement)

Stories in Stamps

you a keen stamp collector? If you are, you have probably wondered quite often what were the stories behind the pictures on the stamps. Here in New Zealand where a building over a hundred years old is a very rare sight, a few Maori pas and broken-down pioneer dwellings are about all the historic ruins we have, but in Europe there are everywhere the remains of old castles, forts, and other buildings that were built long before the Maoris ever came to New Zealand.

These old ruins are pictured often on stamps from the countries of Europe. It is good fun to hear stories about the men who lived in them —exciting events of history that took place within their walls.

On the onc-and-a-half-piastre stamp from Cyprus there is pictured a great stone castle. To-day it is a common prison, yet if the crumbling walls of Kyrenia Castle, as it is called, could speak, they could tell us a tale of a time hundreds of years ago when this fortress was the home of kings and queens. Proud ships anchored close to its walls, and knights in armour and plumed helmets rode under its arched gateways.

A map of the Mediterranean Sea will show you that Cyprus is an island near the Holy Land (Palestine). In that long-ago time when knights came from the Christian lands of Europe to take the Holy Land away from the Turks, who occupied it, they first captured Cyprus. The Crusaders, as these Christian knights were called, liked the island, and some of them decided to stay there.

Their kingdom soon grew rich and prosperous. Boats coming to and from Palestine brought men and gold, while they carried away cargoes of copper and salt. The kings of Cyprus became powerful, and as their strongest fortress and as a place to live, they built Kyrenia Castle. So strong did they build it, that never in all its twelve hundred years has it fallen to an attacking enemy. But long before the Crusaders came to Cyprus, others had lived on this *rocky island and left behind the marks of their occupation. The early Roman Emperors—about the time of Julius Caesar—sent their galleys scouring the Mediterranean for new lands to claim for Rome. At Cyprus these Romans had a big trading station, for they needed copper from Cyprus to use in their bronze armour and weapons. And in the half-paistre stamp of Cyprus there is also history. All that now remains of the Greek city of Salamis is the columns that you see idctured in the stamp, but once it was one of the most important cities in the Eastern world, crowded with traders and soldiers, and bustling with activity from morning till night. Tunis, in Northern Africa, is now a French colony, as the initials R.F. (Republic of France) on the two-fianc stamp show, but the picture on the stamp takes us back nearly two thousand years to the time when Tunis was part of the Roman Empire, just as Cyprus was. It shows the ruins of an old Roman amphitheatre, which was a place for races and sports events, just like our athletic parks and stadiums to-day.

Stamps from every corner of the globe bring us messages of the strange, exciting, and beautiful buildings that are to be found there. If you want to get the most pleasure out of your stamp collection, take time to find out the story of some of the old buildings you see on your stamps. Often and often you will find this ever so much more interesting than reading a story-

book; and if you find out any really good story, do send it in so that other league members can share it too.