Stamps of Bruce Henderson

Occussi-Ambeno 1977 Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II of Britain, the perforated souvenir sheet.

This issue appeared on 15th December 1977, and was an attempt to join the huge crowd of countries and entities issuing stamps to celebrate the  monarch of Great Britain, with whom the Sultanate does not yet have diplomatic relations.

The stamps were printed by offset and hotfoil and embossed, by Heraclio Fournier SA, Vittoria, Spain, the third time this distinguished printing company had done stamps for Occussi-Ambeno.


Occussi-Ambeno 1977 Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II of Britain, the imperf souvenir sheet.

Here is an earlier issue from Occussi-Ambeno, the 1996 set for the Festival of Hathor.


Occussi-Ambeno 1996 Festival of Hathor set.

The set was printed by Adana letterpress on thick white glossy paper without watermark, and perf 12.  The design shows a photograph of the great goddess Hathor, and at the foot are the Egyptian hieroglyphs saying Festival of the great Hathor.

Sadly, the print was not a success. The red base of the 15c stamp is hard to see, and the pale pink of the $2 stamp does not work so well either, although the pink stamp looks a lot better in actuality, as the scanner seems to have failed to capture its true pinkness.

Wikipedia wrote: Hathor is a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion who plays a wide variety of roles. As a sky deity, she is the mother or consort of the sky god Horus and the sun god Ra, both of whom are connected with kingship, and thus she is the symbolic mother of their earthly counterparts, the Pharaohs and Sultans. She is one of several goddesses who act as the Eye of Ra, Ra's feminine counterpart, and in this form she has a vengeful aspect that protects him from his enemies. Her contrasting, beneficent side represents music, dance, joy, love, sexuality, and maternal care, and she acts as the consort of several male deities and the mother of their sons. These two sides of the goddess exemplify the Egyptian conception of femininity. Hathor also crosses boundaries between worlds, helping deceased souls in the transition to the afterlife. Hathor is often depicted as a cow, symbolizing her maternal and celestial aspects, although her most common form is a woman wearing a headdress of cow horns and a sun disk. She can also be represented as a lioness, cobra, or sycomore tree. Cattle goddesses similar to Hathor were portrayed in Egyptian art in the fourth millennium BC, but she herself appeared in the Old Kingdom (c. 2686–2181 BC). With the patronage of Old Kingdom rulers she became one of Egypt's most important deities. More temples were dedicated to her than to any other goddess, of which the most prominent was Dendera Temple in Upper Egypt. She is also worshipped in the temples of her male consorts. The Egyptians connect her with foreign lands such as Nubia and Canaan and their valuable goods, such as incense and semiprecious stones, and some of the peoples in those lands adopted her worship. In Egypt itself, she is one of the deities commonly invoked in private prayers and votive offerings, particularly by women desiring children. During the New Kingdom (c. 1550–1070 BC), goddesses such as Mut and Isis encroached on Hathor's position in royal ideology, but she remains one of the most widely worshipped deities. After the end of the New Kingdom, Hathor was increasingly overshadowed by Isis, but she continues to be venerated in ancient Egyptian religion.