Ambohimanga Royal Houses

Ambohimanga is a fortified royal hill near Antananarivo, associated with the Merina kingdom of the central highlands. Inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2001, it preserves a royal city of two palaces, a pavilion, sacred basins, tombs and fourteen stone gateways. Following highland custom, the houses of the living were built of wood and plant materials, and the tombs of the dead of stone.

Andrianampoinimerina's house

The Mahandrihono compound was established by Andriambelomasina between 1710 and 1730. King Andrianampoinimerina later replaced its twin houses with a larger residence, which survives:

• Walls: solid rosewood.
• Roof: steep and peaked, supported by a central rosewood pillar 10 m (33 ft) tall.
• Covering: originally thatched; the thatch was later replaced with wooden shingles, but the house is otherwise preserved in its original state.
• Ornament: silver-plated roof horns (tandrotrano) where the gable beams cross, a silver eagle once at the ridge, and silver ornaments in the interior roof corners.

In February 2012 Cyclone Giovanna tore off the wooden shingles, exposing the interior, and badly damaged the compound's timber fence.

Other buildings

• Fandriampahalemana: a rosewood palace built in 1871.
• Tranofitaratra ("house of glass"): dated to 1862.
• Bevato: the earliest compound, established before 1710; its buildings were destroyed under French rule and a school built on the site.

Tomb houses

The compound held twelve royal tombs, each a stone crypt topped by a small windowless wooden house (tranomasina). In March 1897 the French colonial authorities destroyed the tomb houses and removed the royal remains to Antananarivo. The Malagasy state rebuilt the sacred wooden houses in 2008, following traditional rites, building rules and choices of timber. Restoration since 1996 has used traditional Malagasy techniques and materials, and since 2006 the site has been managed by the Office of the Cultural Site of Ambohimanga (OSCAR).