Terra Sancta quae in Sacris Terra promissionis olim Palestina has a series of vignettes which enable one to accompany the Israelites on their Exodus out of Egypt, across the Red Sea. Following the pillar of cloud and of fire they travel to Sinai where Moses stands on top of Mt. Horeb holding the tablets of the Law, while the Israelites dance around the golden calf below. Sinai is about one-third of the height and width of the map on the lower left. After an abortive attempt to enter the land the people spent forty years in the wilderness. At. Mt. Nebo Moses died, and the Israelites crossed the Jordan River to inherit the land promised by God. Nebo is just to the left of the lower edge of the Dead Sea, while Jerusalem is above and to the left of the center of the map.
     The compass rose at the top indicates the orientation of the map. The figures beside the cartouche are Moses on the left holding his rod and the stone tablets of the Law, and Aaron in priestly garb with the breastplate of Urim and Thummim, holding a censer
     The map was drawn in 1629 and was incorporated into Joan Blaeu’s (c. 1599-1673) Atlas Minor, 1662-1665.

     The pair of stamps reproduces part of William Blaeu’s (1571-1638) map Insulae Americanae in Oceano Septentrionali cum Terris adiacentibus , first published in 1634 and later in Joan Blaeu’s Groot Atlas in 1662. Since the map was first published in 1634, the note on the lower right hand corner of the left hand stamp, “Mapa S. XVI” is incorrect.
     Blaeu’s map was based on the regional maps of the Americas by Johannes de Laet (1593-1649). in 1630 in the volume L‘Histoire du Nouveau Monde ou Description des Indes Occidentalis which included 14 maps drawn by Hessel Gerritsz (1580/81-1632).

     "For 23 years Andreas Bureus, on the basis of material from the Royal Chancellery, worked on the wall map Orbis Arctoi which was completed in 1626. Subsequently he was engaged in Swedish land surveying. In 1635 his map was copied at Amsterdam for an atlas by Willem Blaeu, whose son Joan incorporated this version in the finest Atlas of the time, Atlas Maior in 1662."