Callao ~ 1746

     Callao was founded by Francisco Pizarro in 1537. It was the main shipping point for silver and gold taken from the Incas by the conquistadors. The stamp shows a plan of the city as it was just before the earthquake of 1746. On the wall surrounding the city there were thirteen bastions, eight on the land side, and five on the side facing the sea. They were named beginning in the lower left-hand corner and reading clockwise: San Miguel, San Ignacio, Santa Cruz, Santa Catarina, Santiago, San Juan, Santo Domingo, San Felipe, San Luiz, San Lorenzo, San Francisco, San Pedro, and San Antonio. The buildings in the center of the city were cathedrals, whose names were from left to right, La Mercea, San Francisco, Santo Domingo, Matriz, and San Augustino. The viceroy's palace is just below San Augustino.

The Amazon Basin

     The stamp was issued in honor of the state visit of General Ernesto Geisel, President of Brazil in 1976. The map shows the Amazon basin. The dotted line represents the border between Peru and Bazil. The area between the two dotted lines North of the Amazon River indicates Colombian territory. Three rivers flow into the Amazon, from the left, the Maranon, the Huallaga, and the Ucayli. Three towns or cities on the Amazon are also marked, from the left, Iquitos, Peru, ?, and Tabatinga, Brazil.

The Nasca Plain

     Geoglyphs, land drawings, were scratched on the surface of the ground between 500 b.c. and 500 a.d. in the Peruvian coastal plain south of Lima. The glyphys depict animals, plants, imaginary beings and geometric figures. They were discovered by Dr. Paul Kosok of Long Island University. In 1946 he passed all of his information to Maria Reiche, a graduate of Hamburg University. She became the protector, preserver, and interpreter of the drawings for 50 years. She died in 1998.
     The stamp shows a picture of Maria Reiche, and some of the drawings on the Nasca plain.