Portugal 2025

Portugal

Date of Issue: 9th May 2025

one stamp (1.21 €) and one souvenir-sheet (3.51 €)

the stamp is issued in a mini-sheet of 10 stamps

Ara ao Sol e ao Oceano (Alto da Vigia, Sintra)
SÓLI ET OÇ[EA]NO / [-] VIRlVS AGR[IC]QLA / [P]RQÇ(urator) AVGVSTOR(um) / ÇVM STATILIA C(aii) • F(ilia) • /5 IVLJANE • VXORE E[T] / LIBERJS A «To the Sun and the Ocean, - Virius Agricola, procurator of the Augusti, with Statilia Iuliane, daughter of Caius, (his) wife, and children. » On a small promontory north of Cape Roca (the Promonturium Magnum to the Romans), near the mouth of the Colares stream in Sintra, we find an archaeological site where, in the 11th century AD, the Muslims established a small ribat (a religious and military complex) over the ruins of a temple where the Romans worshipped the Sun, the Moon, and the unknown Ocean (ignotus oceanus), most likely from the second quarter of the 1st century AD. This attests to the existence of a sacred site (locus sacer) from the Roman era, which later became the westernmost frontier of the European continent. This Roman altar stone is dedicated to the Sun and the Ocean by Virius Agricola, governor of the Roman province of Lusitania, and was erected at the sanctuary of Alto da Vigia, in the mid-2nd century AD. This piece is part of the collection of the São Miguel de Odrinhas Archaeological Museum.

Child from Lapedo (Abrigo do Lagar Velho, Vale do Lapedo, Leiria)
In December 1998, 25 years ago, the team led by archaeologist Jãoo Zilhão excavated the grave of a child aged around four who lived in the so-called Gravetense period of the Upper Palaeolithic. An international and multidisciplinary team was assembled to study and publish, under his guidance and that of Erik Trinkaus, the skeleton and the funerary context, carefully deposited by the group of hunter-gatherers, which most likely included members of his family, in the shelter of the leafy Lapedo Valley. Using new methods of analysis, it has recently been proposed to update the time interval in which the child lived to between 27,800 and 28,600 years before the present. This reveals what is an important hallmark of archaeology: the progress of research through continuous collaboration with other scientific disciplines. This unique tomb is central to understanding the evolution of Modern Man, as well as how the living came to relate to the dead. In 2021, it was classified as a National Treasure and is deposited in the National Archaeological Museum.