Skeleton on a postage stamp: you can feel the bones!

Skeletons have been quite in the news lately. First came the message beyond that a skeleton at a school in New Zealand turned out to be made of real human bones. A week later It was about a skeleton again. In a historic building for sale in Sweden, a medieval skeleton lies beneath a glass plate. I wondered at the time if there were actually many stamps with skeletons on them.

Special stamps of Slovenia

I only found a few. But I find this one particularly special. They were issued by Slovenia in 2005 in a series on Gothic art. These se-tenant printed stamps depict a detail of the famous fresco 'Dance of Death' in the Church of the Holy Trinity in Hrastovlje, Slovenia. This fresco, created by John from KastavIt was completed in 1490. It is 90 centimeters high and 630 centimeters long. It depicts eleven figures at different stages of life. They all walk hand in hand with a skeleton.

The special thing about these stamps is that the skeletons are rendered in relief. If you run your finger over them, you can feel the bones. Nice, an image of a 500-year-old fresco dressed up in a 'modern' stamp design.

More stamps with skeletons

This stamp featuring a skeleton was issued by Latvia in 2007 in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Museum of Medicine. A beautiful stamp with various aspects and different depths.

In 1980, for World Health Day, Mexico came up with a cigar-smoking skeleton. The stamp asks: do you choose tobacco or health?

The stamp from Thulamela was previously on display on Postzegelblog. Cees Janssen wrote about a South African postal service booklet in which this stamp was also included. Elsewhere, I read that the skeletal remains depicted on the stamp are those of Queen Losha. They were discovered in 1996 and carefully exhumed by the Department of Anatomy at the University of Pretoria. Queen Losha was buried in a fetal position with her hands on the left side of her face, a gesture of respect. A gold bracelet can be seen on another stamp from the booklet. She wore this on her forearm.

Not much

There aren't many of them: stamps featuring a skeleton. At least, that is all I have been able to find. Perhaps because people don't find it a very pleasant subject. Too macabre, some might even think. I find the stamps above beautiful, every single one of them. Beautiful to look at and beautiful because of the story behind their issuance.