AN ANCIENT headdress on show at a York museum is to feature on a new stamp being issued by the Royal Mail.

The Star Carr headdress was found at a mesolithic site at Seamer near Scarborough, and is on display at the Yorkshire Museum.

This week Royal Mail announced the release of eight stamps featuring some of the most inspiring objects and atmospheric sites of UK prehistory - and the deer antler headdress is among them.

The Royal Mail's Philip Parker said: "The UK has an incredibly rich heritage of prehistoric sites and exceptional artefacts. These new stamps explore some of these treasures and give us a glimpse of everyday life in prehistoric Britain, from the culture of ancient ritual and music making to sophisticated metalworking and the building of huge hill forts."

The stamps use illustrations by artist Rebecca Strickson to show how people lived and worked with the objects.

As well as the special stamps, Royal Mail will provide a special postmark on all mail posted in a postbox close to where the site is located or the artefact found - in Star Carr's case the at the postbox at Seamer Post Office - and that is being applied from January 17 to 21.