ALGERIA

ALGERIA / الجزائر - ⴷⵣⴰⵢⴻⵔ

Kherrata Gorge, carved by the wadi Agrioun, and Chabet-el-Akra bridge,
in the Bejaia province (Kabylia region).
First stamp in a set of 5, issued on 01.11.1962.
Face value: 0,05 Algerian franc.
Design: André Spitz.
Engraving: Robert Cami.
Print: 3,500,000.
Printed by the Imprimerie des PTT, Paris.
Size: 26 x 40 mm.

Catalogues
- Scott No. 291.
- StampWorld No. 389.
- Yvert et Tellier No. 364.

The gorge is in one of the wildest areas of Algeria, in a mountainous chaos that bears the significant name of Chabet-el-Akra "the ravine of death" or more precisely the "abyss of the afterlife". It is crossed by the Bougie-Setif national road. At the entrance of the gorge is Kherrata (خراطة in Arabic, ⵅⴻⵔⵔⴰⵟⴰ in Tamazight), the town that gives it its name. The enormous 6-kilometer fault dominated by steep walls several hundred meters high, is traversed by the wadi Agrioun. The road was built between 1868 and 1880 and has been constantly improved since then. The Kherrata Gorge was key to the resistance of the National Liberation Front during the Algerian War of Independence (1954-1962), and the region remains linked in the Algerian collective memory to the massacres of May 8, 1945.