The Archaeological Ensemble of Mérida was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO on December 11, 1993.
The current city coexists with its past, giving rise to spaces, both in the historic center and in the beautiful surrounding areas, in which the monumentality inherited by cultures as diverse as the Visigoth, the Andalusian or the medieval Christian is striking. Ruins fused with landmark buildings of contemporary architecture, with the National Museum of Roman Art at the forefront. But it is, without a doubt, the archaeological areas of the ancient Augusta Emerita that led UNESCO to formalize this declaration.
The colony, founded by Augustus, became the capital of Lusitania, the westernmost province of the Roman Empire and, already in the 4th century, it was the city from which the entire Iberian Peninsula and the territories of present-day Morocco were administered. In the following centuries, this Romanity survived in a Christianised form, linked to the symbol of Saint Eulalia, the Patron Saint of the City and of all Hispania during the early stages of the Middle Ages.
There are impressive material testimonies of all this. They are living vestiges, as some of the springs that supplied its aqueducts continue to function, the swamps continue to hold water, some of the manor houses from the 19th and early 20th centuries continue to drain into the old Roman sewers, you can walk along some of the roads and bridges of the colony, worship a Christian martyr in the same place where she was buried more than 1,800 years ago or you can attend a cultural event in temples, houses, thermal baths or a Roman theatre like the one represented on this stamp.
The Roman theatre of Mérida is one of the best preserved in the Empire and the main stage of the International Classical Theatre Festival, the oldest of the national festivals.
The stamp is a chalcography of a detail of the scene. The issue is a block sheet accompanied by an artist's proof that reproduces the stamp in colored silver.
José Luis Mosquera Müller
Official Chronicler of the City of Mérida
