| Country / Post |
Portugal |
|---|
| Date of Issue |
20/08/2020 |
|---|
| Primary theme |
History (Archeology) |
|---|
| Subject |
Prehistoric Route - 2st Series - neolithic |
|---|
| Width |
40.0 mm |
|---|
| Height |
30.6 mm |
|---|
| Denomination |
0.86 € |
|---|
| Number in set |
4 |
|---|
| Layout/Format |
sheet of 50 |
|---|
| Perforations |
12.25 by 12 |
|---|
| Stamp issuing authority |
CTT Correios de Portugal SA |
|---|
| Printer |
Imprensa Nacional Casa da Moeda |
|---|
In the August 20, CTT will presented a philatelic issue with four stamps on the prehistoric script, from the Lower / Middle Paleolithic, the ancient Neolithic and the final Neolithic / Chalcolithic.
The stamps of this issue show the flint biface of the Lower / Middle Paleolithic (c. 300,000-35,000 BC); a vase with printed and plastic decoration from the ancient Neolithic period (c. 5,500-4,500 BC); a schist staff with geometric decoration and serrated back from the Final Neolithic / Chalcolithic period (c. 3000-2,500 BC); and a late Neolithic / Chalcolithic shale halberd (c. 3,000-2,500 BC).
As stated by Mariana Diniz, Associate Professor at UNIARQ - Faculty of Letters of Lisbon, on the page of this issue, “it was in the Paleolithic period that the first humans arrived in our unoccupied territory. From this time, parts of skeletons found in caves exist, visited over and over again, and where stone or bone utensils are abandoned - such as the steaks at Gruta da Furninha (Peniche) . ”
In the Neolithic period, in the middle of the 6th millennium BC, ceramic vases were produced, intended for the storage, confection and consumption of food, which contained a decoration where group identities were affirmed, using shells, marking flutes or drawing ears - as in the vessel of the Gruta da Senhora da Luz (Rio Maior).
According to Mariana Diniz, “we do not know the belief system of the ancient Neolithic and Chalcolithic societies that built, during the 4th and 3rd millennium BC, in different landscapes, megalithic monuments destined to receive the dead. (…) However, the effort that the construction of these funerary structures requires, with the transport of large blocks of stone weighing several tons, as in the great Antas do Alentejo or Beiras, the characters with big eyes, represented in stone, ceramics or bone, surround the dead, artifacts in common use - arrowheads, polished stone axes, ceramic vases, but also exceptional pieces loaded with symbolic value and social status, such as the Schist Staff, the game of light that the cautious construction of these monuments oriented to the rising sun illuminates, real or metaphorically, the funerary chamber,. ”
Finally, in the Chalcolithic, population growth, prosperity - and the resulting economic inequality were at the basis of a climate of conflict that marked the 3rd millennium BC. Economic intensification and social complexification will be at the base of the Chalcolithic elites whose main distinguishing feature seems to be the possession, for example, of exotic or technologically exceptional goods - as is the case of flint halberd, an artifact whose warlike function seems certain.
This philatelic issue consists of four stamps with the face values of € 0.53, € 0.75, € 0.86 and € 2.00. The design of the stamps was in charge of Hélder Soares of Atelier Design & etc. The first day's obliterations will be made at Restauradores stores in Lisbon, Municipality II in Porto, Zarco in Funchal and Antero de Quental in Ponta Delgada.
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