Switzerland 2024 "Giants of the Ice Age"
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| Issue Date | 2024 |
| ID | Michel: Scott: Stanley Gibbons: Yvert et Tellier: Category: pR |
| Design | Anita Dettwiler / Dani Pelagatti, Zurich |
| Stamps in set | 2 |
| Values |
CHF 1.00 - Woolly rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis) CHF 1.20 - Woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) |
| Emission/Type | commemorative |
| Issue place | Bern |
| Size (width x height) | 33 mm x 28 mm |
| Layout | Two Mini-Sheets of 10, special sheet of 4 |
| Products | FDC x2, Souvenir Page x1 |
| Paper | White stamp paper, with optical brightener, matt gummed, 110 gm2 |
| Perforation | 13.50 x 13.25 |
| Print Technique | Offset, 4-colour |
| Printed by | Gutenberg AG, Schaan, Principality of Liechtenstein |
| Quantity | |
| Issuing Authority | Swiss Post |
On November 7th, 2024 the Post Authority of Switzerland issued the set of two stamps "Giants of the Ice Age" depicting woolly rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis) and woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius).
These stamps were printed in separate Mini-Sheets of 10 with text and decorations on the margins and in combined Souvenir-Sheet of 4 in the shape of both Ice Age animals. FDC were issued in three formats: small (C6) and big (C5) white covers with 1 or 4 stamps each cancelled by black ink First-Day-of-Issue Postmark; big (C5), numbered, cover with illustration of a landscape with two stamps cancelled by silver ink First-Day-of-Issue Postmark and text written in silver colour on the bottom-left side.
Some covers were cancelled by "Witnesses of the Ice Age" (Zeugen der Eiszeit) postmark of Fällanden, introduced on January 2nd 1999.
The following prehistoric animals were depicted on the stamps
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Woolly Mammoth The woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) is a representative of the family elephants, adapted to the cold climate of the Ice Age. It is known from 200 000 years and became extinct about 11 500 years ago in Europe and North America. The extinction coincides with the dramatically changing climate at the end of Ice Age. These changes reduced the wide grass steppes, the specific habitat of the mammoth. Only on the small Wrangel Island in the northern Arctic Sea, a population of dwarf-mammoths survived until about 4000 years ago. An average male mammoth measured 3.00–3.50 m at the shoulder and had the dimension of the recent Asian elephant. It weighed 4–5 tons. The biggest bulls stood up to 4 m tall and reached the dimensions of the present day African elephant. His food consisted of about 200 kg of plant material such as grass, leafs, branches, together with more than 100 litres of water per day. The mammoth was characterized by two big tusks and six generations of molar teeth. The mammoth had a 3 cm thick skin and 9 cm thick layer of fat as protection against low temperature. The 4–5 cm long woolly hairs of the under-fur were covered by a thicker fur made up of 1 m long hair. Small ears and a short tail were other adaptions to the extremely cold winter. In comparison with the recent African elephant, the mammoth probably lived for 50–70 years. Mammoth achieved sexual maturity by about 10 years. After a gestation time of about 22 months, young animals were probably born in spring time. |
Woolly Rhinoceros The woolly rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis) is an extinct species of rhinoceros that was native to Europe, North Africa, and Asia during the Pleistocene epoch (5.3 million to 11,700 years ago). The animal was massive, with two large horns toward the front of the skull, and was covered with a thick coat of hair, that allowed it to survive in the extremely cold. It had a massive hump reaching from its shoulder and fed mainly on herbaceous plants that grew in the steppe. An adult woolly rhinoceros typically measured 3.2 to 3.6 metres from head to tail, stood 1.45–1.6 metres tall at the withers, and weighed up to 1.5–2.0 making it comparable in size to the largest living rhinoceros species. Both males and females had two horns which were made of keratin, with one long horn reaching forward and a smaller horn between the eyes. Unlike in modern rhinos, the large nasal horn was often flattened in cross-section, and abrasion patterns on the horn indicate it's possible use in brushing away snow when grazing. Compared to other rhinoceroses, the woolly rhinoceros had a longer head and body, and shorter legs. Its shoulder was raised with a powerful hump, used to support the animal's massive front horn. The hump also contained a fat reserve to aid survival through the desolate winters of the mammoth steppe. The species became extinct at the end of the Last Glacial Period, with its decline probably predominantly driven by unfavourable environmental change caused by a warming climate. |
There is evidence of the existence of these long-haired heavyweights at around 100 locations in the valleys of the Swiss plateau and Jura mountains. They lived where the glaciers receded during the warmer periods of the Ice Age, giving way to a grassy steppe – the ideal environment for mammoth's fauna.
The earliest mammoth bones in Switzerland were found in 1577 near the monastery of Reiden, known later in the literature as the "Giant of Reiden", "Giant of Lucerne" or "Swiss Giant".
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| Woolly Mammot, discovered at Luzern on commemorative postmark of Switzerland 2010 |
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| Image credit: kapellbruecke |
In 1577, huge bones were found in Heiden in the canton of Lucerne under an oak tree that had been uprooted by a storm.
They were brought to Lucerne.
When the famous doctor Felix Plater was called to Lucerne in 1584 to care for the sick military colonel Ludwig Pfyffer,
the councillors showed him these bones - as Plater himself tells us in his Observationes medicete.
He examined them and could not believe that they were anything other than the bones of a giant.
The council decided to send him some of the larger pieces to Basel, where Plater compared them with the human skeleton pieces
in his possession and was confirmed in his belief that they were the bones of a human giant, with heigh of 5.5 meters.
Plater then had the Basel master painter Hans Bock make a drawing of the bones that had been reconstructed and supplemented
to form a gigantic human skeleton and sent the drawing back to Lucerne along with the bones.
In 1799, the famous naturalist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752-1840) from Goettingen (today Germany) recognized these fossils as bones of a mammoth and took two of the bones for further study with him. The cast of these bones can be seen in the Natural History Museum in Luzern today. The misidentification of Plater came from the similarities of the foot bones of the mammals: elephant (who wasn't known in Switzerland in 16th century) and human and while the skull and tusks of the mammoth were not discovered with the foot bones.
Other historical mammoth fossils were found in sand and gravel pits of the Swiss midlands from Geneva to Lake Constance in 1700 - a large number of elephant bones were excavated, including no more than 60 tusks. The more beautiful pieces were kept, the others went to the court pharmacy to heal the sick as it was believed these fossil ivory have some magical properties.
More than 200 bones and teeth of the woolly mammoth are known since 1769 from the region of Basel and more than 60 from Kanton Zurich since 1821 respectively.
In 1969, 14 000 years old, mammoth fossils were discovered at a gravel pit of Praz-Rodet in the Vallée de Joux in north western Switzerland. The mounted skeleton can be seen in the Musée cantonal de géologie in Lausanne today.
Niederweningen site
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| Niederweningen on commemorative postmark of Switzerland 1981 |
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| Woolly Mammoths from Niederweningen - illustrations from "Geschichte der Mammutfunde" by Professor Arnold Lang - mounted skeleton of the adult animal and bones of the calf. |
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| Wooly Mammoths from Niederweningen on stamp of Switzerland 2024 |
In summer 1890, when a thin bed of gravel was exploited for the construction of the new railway embankment, more than 100 bones, molar teeth and tusks of at least seven different individuals of mammoths, including a neonatal calf of about 2 months age, were discovered in a peat horizon at the base of a gravel pit at the village of Niederweningen, 20km northwest of Zurich.
When the bones were discovered, the workers carefully collected each bone and took it to the local inn for storage. By the beginning of August, it was clear that there were a lot of bones there. The minister of the church in nearby Dielsdorf, Pastor Schluep, sent a telegram to the president of the Zurich Antiquarian Society telling him about the find.
Professor Arnold Lang from the Zurich University arrived in Niederweningen on the next work day, to examine the site. In a mere two weeks he organized an conducted a full excavation of the site. During that time he not only collected bones, he brought in experts to examine the geological situation and botanical remains associated with the bones. The excavation continued to the summer of the following year and was led by the zoologist Dr. Arnold Lang from Zurich University.
Further fragmentary fossils have been identified as remains of woolly rhino (Coelodonta antiquitatis), wild horse (Equus przewalskii), bison (Bison priscus), wolf (Canis lupus), lemming (Lemmus lemmus), vole (Arvicola terrestris), frog (Rana temporaria) and a bird.
In 1892, Herr Dreyer, one of the experts Lang recruited, used bones from all the adult mammoths to assemble a composite skeleton, from bones of six individuals, which was mounted and displayed in the zoology museum at the University of Zurich. The mammoth was mounted in the same posture as the famous Adam's Mammoth (with tusks by sides) - the first mounted and exhibited for the public in 1808 in St. Petersburg, with tusks placed on the wring sides.
The first mammoth skeleton mounted in West Europe was the "Lier Mammoth" from Belgium - discovered in 1860 near the Dungelhoeffkazerne in Lier in the Province of Antwerp. Shown for the public in the first time in 1869, it was the only second mounted Mammoth skeleton in the world and the first Mammoth fossils found outside of permafrost region of Siberia.
Dreyer's composite skeleton is still in Zurich, in 1991, the skeleton was remounted according to recent anatomical knowledge.In July 2003, the lower jaw of a mammoth was discovered in a construction site at Murzelen street, only 100 meters west of an original mammoth site. In an emergency 3-weeks excavation, the Palaeontological Institute and Museum of the University of Zurich and the Archaeological Survey of Kanton Zurich recovered teeth and bones of a partially, about 50% complete, articulated mammoth skeleton. The dimensions of the limb bones and the tusks suggest the animal was height of about 3.50 meters at withers. Recent radiocarbon analysis of these bones, wood and peat samples indicate that the mammoth(s), perished at the age of approximately 40 years and it sank in the bog of Niederweningen approx. 45.000 years ago.
The peat swamp of Niederweningen developed in a relatively open landscape with marshes and wet meadows in a periodically flooded valley plain at the edge of a silting up lake in the Wehn Valley during an interstadial period. At the beginning of the peat formation climate conditions were not favourable for tree growth as indicated by the low content and assemblage of tree pollen.
In March and April of the following year another construction pit, called "Mammutweg", was opened at Niederweningen, just at the western end of the original mammoth site. This time several disarticulated bones, probably, originate from an old male mammoth, and several other prehistoric animals, including hyena (Crocuta crocuta spelaea) were found there.
In October 2005 the Mammutmuseum Niederweningen (literally: Mammoth Museum Niederweningen) was established after successful crowdfunding campaign. The main objects of the museum are the reconstructions of a mammoth calf skeleton, based on fossils from 1890 and the skeleton of an adult animal, based on the bones discovered in 2003. The reconstruction of the pair was shown on one of the postage stamps (see on the right).
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| View in the main hall of the Mammoth Museum Niederweningen. | Reconstruction of the calf skeleton, based on bones discovered in 1890. |
| Images credit: the Mammoth Museum Niederweningen. | |
In October 2015 an interactive multimedia installation for the visitors was inaugurated, when the exhibition was renewed on occasion of the museum's 10th anniversary. The museum also houses the geological project "Eiszeiten und Klimawandel der vergangenen 500 000 Jahre im Wehntal" (in English: "Ice ages and climate change in the past 500,000 years in the Wehntal"), that researched the climate change and glacial periods of the last 500,000 years in the Wehntal valley.
Woolly Rhinoceros
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| Wooly Rhinoceros from Niederweningen on stamp of Switzerland 2024 |
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| The dragon from Klagenfurt on stamp of Austria 1968 |
In 1799, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach studied rhinoceros bones from the collection of the University of Goettingen, and proposed the scientific name Rhinoceros antiquitatis.
Woolly rhinoceros remains have been known long before the species was described and were the basis for some mythical creatures. Native peoples of Siberia believed their horns were the claws of giant birds.
A rhinoceros skull was found in Klagenfurt, Austria, in 1335, and was believed to be that of a dragon.
Legend has it that Klagenfurt was founded after a couple of brave men had slain the abominable
"Lindwurm", a winged dragon in the moors adjoining the lake, the staple diet of which is said
to have been virgins, but which did not spurn the fat bull on a chain that the men had mounted on a
strong tower.
In 1335 the cranium of a woolly rhinoceros from the ice-age was found in a gravel pit near Klagenfurt.
It was instantly interpreted as the skull of the dragon.
In 1840 the palaeontologist Franz UNGER determined it as the cranium of the woolly rhinoceros Coelodonta antiquitatis.
This fossil, which is still on exhibit at the Landesmuseum fuer Kaernten, served as a model for
the head of the fountain which was installed on the central square of the city, errected by Ulrich Vogelsang in 1590.
Although it represents a dragon, it can be regarded as the first palaeontological reconstruction.
Several molars of the animal were discovered in the north-east of Switzerland and are in collection and display of Natural History Museum of Olten (approx. 70km north-east of Bern).
In 1991, a well preserved skull of a woolly rhinoceros was discovered in Vaumarcus, canton Neuchatel, during dredge works in the lake. It was discovered in the depth of 30 meters and its age was estimated 14.000 years old.
This skull of a young animal, is probably comes from a body which was transported by the Ruz de la Vaux, a tributary of the lake that forms a delta in Vaumarcus, or by lake streams, and sank after the decomposition of the soft body parts.
Products and associated philatelic items
| FDC | ||
| C6 covers, black postmarks | First-Day-of-Issue Postmark | |
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| Circulated FDC | Commemorative Postmark | |
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| This permanent postmark of Faellanden (Fällanden) "Witnesses of the Ice Age", exist since January 2nd 1999. Faellanden is a municipality in the district of Uster in the canton of Zurich in Switzerland. | ||
| Mini-Sheets | C5 FDC cover with silver First-Day-of-Issue Postmark | |
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| Presentation Sheet | ||
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References:
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- Technical details and official press release:
Focus Magazine of Swiss Post,
- History of Mammoth discovery in Switzerland:
"Geschichte der Mammutfunde", by Dr. Arnold Lang, published in Zurich in 1892
Zentralplus
"The mammoth site of Niederweningen, Switzerland", by Heinz Furrer, Hans Rudolf Graf, Andreas Maeder, doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2006.10.012
"Stable isotope compositions of mammoth teeth from Niederweningen, Switzerland: Implications for the Late Pleistocene climate, environment, and diet", by Thomas Tuetken, Heinz Furrer, Torsten Walter Vennemann, doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2006.09.004
- Prof. Dr. Arnold Lang:
Wikipedia
- Johann Friedrich Blumenbach:
Wikipedia
- Prof. Dr. Arnold Lang:
- Mammoth Museum Niederweningen:
Mammut Museum, Wikipedia, Limmattaler Zeitung - Woolly Mammoth:
Wikipedia, Encyclopedia Britannica - Woolly Rhinoceros:
Wikipedia, Encyclopedia Britannica - Discovery of Mammoth-fauna in Switzerland:
Naturmuseum Olten,
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