The Queen's Palace after the fire
The original palace built for Queen Ranavalona I was constructed of wood. Later, the wooden building was encased in a stone shell designed by Scottish missionary James Cameron. In Malagasy it is known as the Manjakamiadana. It was situated in a royal compound on top of a sacred hill overlooking the city of Antananarivo. Within this compound, known as the Rova, there were several other wooden palace buildings now totally destroyed by the fire in 1995, also royal tombs (surviving but without their wooden upper structures), gardens and the palace church (Queen Ranavalona II converted to Christianity in 1869). Sadly, only the empty shell of the Queen's Palace, the bases of the tombs, the stone entrance gateway and the stonework of the church survived the devastating fire.
A number of pictures of the Queen's Palace before the fire can be found on the Madagascar Cultural Alliance website.
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