Hermes (Greek stamp) following June 10, announced the choice of Hermes, messenger of the Gods in the Greek mythology as the effigy of the stamps. The stamps depict a profile of the Greek messenger god Hermes (Mercury) in a frame strongly resembling that used for contemporary stamps of France. The nine values of the stamps of the "large Hermes head" are printed during more than twenty years (from 1861 to 1882) from the same nine typographic plates and stayed in circulation for 25 years (from 1861 to 1886) before to be used again, overprinted, in 1900/1901. The first set was issued on October
Altar of the Twelve Gods was a Pentelic marble statue base inscribed on its front: thus identifying the enclosure as that of the Altar of the Twelve Gods. As of 1992, "nearly nine-tenths" of the Altar lay buried beneath the Athens-Piraeus Electric Railway, with only the southwest corner of the enclosure visible. More of the Altar was uncovered by Greek archaeologists in 2011 when the train tracks were temporarily removed for maintenance work. Once the Altar was exposed, archaeologists and a group promoting the revival of ancient Greek polytheism filed legal injunctions to prevent replacement of the tracks of the Athens-Piraeus Railway. The court ruled