Walls And Fortresses

Spain issued a beautiful stamp honoring the Great Wall in 2015. 'Wonders of the Modern World', but it wasn't built in modern times! That just shows how well it was built centuries and even longer ago. Many thousands of miles. The backdrop shows the flag of China.

Hello, Alexey, Thanks for the information - if Derawar was built mainly of sun-dried bricks, then it is even more amazing that those huge walls and bastions are still standing! K.

Ancient Babylon, now a part of the city of Hillah south of Baghdad, was well known already in the 6th century BC, not least because of the city's magnificent brick walls and the blue gates, constructed under Nebuchadnezzar. Stamp of 1980 shows a sketch of how the inner part of the city might have looked and superimposed the location of Babylon.

The Gate of Ishtar was carefully removed from the walls of ancient Babylon and reconstructed in the Pergamon Museum of ancient Cultures in Berlin, Germany. Its size and the intensity of the blue color of the glazed bricks are simply overwhelming; the animals march in unison. 2013

The animals of the Ischtar Gate were shown in detail earlier on stamps of the DDR, 1966.

Switzerland
Castles of Bellinzona
May 11, 2017
Castles of Bellinzona are a group of fortifications composed of walls, towers, battlements, gates, and three castles named Montebello, Sasso Corbaro and Castelgrande. They were important line of defense for the ancient Romans, and the first written reference dates back to 590 AD.

Cyprus
Definitive Issue
September 17, 1962
Saint Hilarion Castle lies on the Kyrenia mountain range, with command of the pass road from Kyrenia to Nicosia in northern Cyprus. The Byzantines began fortification in the 11th century. The stamp shows the castle on the hilltop and the stone wall leading to the gate of the fortification.

The old Fort Othello at Famagusta on the north coast of Cyprus is not vast, but very impressive! Built in the 14th century, it was modified by the Venetians and guarded the harbor. Stamp dates from the time Cyprus was a British Crown Colony. It is still a divided island (Greek and Turkish).

Way back in 1991 France showed the citadel of Herat, Afghanistan, an UNESCO world heritage site. In the meantime this magnificent complex of walls, bastions and buildings has been restored. And not for the first time - it has been there since Alexander the Great came through the valley and has survived innumerable attacks. It now houses a national museum.

Derbent occupies the narrow gateway between the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus Mountains connecting the Eurasian steppes to the north and the Iranian Plateau to the south. The site had fortifications as early as the 8th century BC, but the present walls and bastions date from the 6th century AD onward. The walls are 15-20 meters high, additional walls extend all the way down to the harbor, protecting the town between them. A UNESCO heritage site.

The Great Wall of India at Kumbhalgarh in Rajasthan. Huge barrel-like bastions in the front wall facing the valley far below. In the rear of the fortress the wall snakes through very rough countryside. The fortress is not only seat of royalty but also a place of worship with many temples. Built in the 15th century, it is now UNESCO cultural site. How could all those rocks etc have been carried up there?

Moldova
Castles
July 29, 1995
Khotyn Fortress is a fortification complex located on the right bank of the Dniester River in Khotyn in western Ukraine. Construction on the current Khotyn fortress was started in 1325, while major improvements were made in the 1380s and in the 1460s.

Azerbaijan
Architecture of Azerbaijan
December 6, 2017
Chirag Qala is a ruined ancient fortress overlooking the Caspian coastal plains north of Baku in Azerbaijan. It is located on the top of a mountain in the Guba Forest. It was constructed by the Sassanid Persians in the 5th century and was used as a defense for the khanate of Quba in the 18th century.

Madeira (Portugal)
EUROPA - Castles
May 9, 2017
São João Baptista do Pico Fortress is a stone fortification located on the hillside of Funchal, on the island of Madeira. The structure was completed in the 17th century as part of the defensive system of the city of Funchal against the attacks of privateers and pirates.

more picturesque view of the Khotyn fortress

The walls of Jericho came tumbling down. One in the set of stamps, 1982, telling the story of Joshua, and an old print showing the scene.