 |
Al-Ahram Weekly 21 - 27 October 1999 Issue No. 452 
|
||
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
|
Al-Ahram Weekly 21 - 27 October 1999 Issue No. 452
|
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters A philatelic journey
By Reham El-BadawiThe reopening of the Postal Museum in Ataba Square is now eagerly expected, following renovation work that has lasted several months.
Who would imagine that such a small space -- a mere 600 square metres -- could contain so many treasures? The situation is not helped by the fact that it is hidden away in an annex of the National Postal Authority, where few people even suspect its existence. The collection has been housed here since its establishment in 1934 under the reign of King Fouad. It contains a variety of memorabilia, in addition to the stamps themselves, ranging from classical portraits of khedives such as Ismail, and kings, among them Farouk himself, to tiny statues of postmen dressed in antique uniforms. There is also a model of the museum and a fine display of khaki leather bags in which the postmen kept their letters, complete with locks.
The visitor can also view old carriages which were used to deliver letters, along with printing machines and a pictorial display which records the progress of the postal process, from the time of the Pharaohs, through the Ptolemaic period and the Romans, up till the present day.
Ahmed El-Soli, head of the National Postal Authority (NPA), said that the museum's visitors will notice that the parquet floor had been polished and that they have repainted the walls.
But the NPA, though it may treasure the past, is not trapped in it. Last April, philatelist from around the globe were flocking to www.stamps.npo.gov.eg. There they could see stamps commemorating the 6 October War, Human Rights, World Post Day, Nile Day, and many other occasions. The site also documents Egypt's philatelic past through a ravishing collection of historic and memorial stamps. Full details of how to obtain collector's editions and how to pay for them from abroad are provided. To mark the inauguration of the web site, a number of particularly rare stamps were put on display in a special exhibition at the NPA.
Perhaps not surprisingly, it was the ancient Egyptians who were responsible for the world's first postal service, a fact documented in the engravings on their temples. They even handled foreign mail, though they couldn't yet send it par avion.
Oldies displayed in the Post Museum: a letter box, statues of postmen on bikes, ancient scales, horse-drawn carriages for postal transport and a collection of memorial stamps
photos: Abdel-Wahab El-Siheeti
The postage stamp, however, only came into being a lot later. It was Roland Hill, a British citizen, who first had the idea. The first ever stamps were introduced on 6 May 1840, and bore the head of Queen Victoria.
Remarkably, the first Egyptian stamps were issued not long afterwards, on 1 January 1866. This move followed the purchase of the European Post Company by Khedive Ismail, who had nationalised the business on 2 January 1865 -- the day which has since come to be known as "Post Day".
This company became the Khedivial post service, and later developed into the present National Post Authority. Although the stamps issued in those early days were purely Egyptian in design, had the word "Egypt" written across their centre, and the value of 10 piastres indicated at the bottom, they were nevertheless printed in Genoa. It was only after the July Revolution that Egypt acquired her first stamp-printing press in 1961.
Since then, there has been great progress in the postal service as a whole, and the printing of stamps has developed by leaps and bounds. Today, we even have a Higher Institution for Postal Services.
Ahmed El-Shazly, Secretary of the Stamps Technical Committee, explained that his members set a regular contest for new designs, in which the nation's arts faculties occasionally participate. "It takes us a long time and several attempts to come up with the final appropriate design that duly reflects the occasion," El-Shazly added.
Ahmed Abdel-Salam, head of the Postal Museum, expanded a little further on the different types of stamps you can find there. Exhibits are classified into four types: local stamps, which normally have simple Pharaonic, Islamic or Coptic designs; international stamps, the first of which was issued in 1926; public stamps, bearing eagles or falcons, that are used for communication between governmental institutions; and memorial stamps, which were first issued in 1925 on the occasion of the International Geographical Conference.
The Postal Museum is especially rich in this latter area, with countless examples portraying famous figures in different fields. Thus, the visitor can see stamps commemorating King Farouk's coronation in 1938, the International Postal Union conference in 1934, the July Revolution's achievements, commencing in 1953, and, of course, numerous issues extolling the victory of 6 October. There is also a set of stamps which reviews the Pharaonic dynasties, from the first right through till the nineteenth.
According to Zeinab Taha Ahmed, the museum's administrative manager, the hobby of stamp collecting first began in 1861. It started in Paris, and from there rapidly spread across the world. Nowadays, she explained, the Egyptian postal service uses state-of-the-art technology which is often a subject of discussion in the trade magazines. For example, Britain's Stamp magazine, and Pakistan's Universal wrote about the 1998 "Cairo University" stamp, while America's Scott Stamp monthly singled out the 1999 "Human Rights" design for its readers' attention.
The refurbishment of the Postal Museum will be crowned shortly by the introduction of the latest issues, resplendent in silver and gold, commemorating President Hosni Mubarak's re-election for his fourth six-year-presidential term along with the millennium performance of the opera Aida. A study is meanwhile being carried out as to how this precious legacy might be relocated so as to attract more attention both from Egyptian and from foreigner visitors.
