page_title: Mandalay Palace
section_title: Great Audience Hall
hierarchical_section_title: Mandalay Palace / On the palace platform / Great Audience Hall
caption_attribution_description: English: Photograph of the Nandaw (Royal Palace) at Mandalay in Burma (Myanmar), from the Archaeological Survey of India Collections: Burma Circle, 1903-07. The photograph was taken by an unknown photographer in 1903 under the direction of Taw Sein Ko, the Superintendent of the Archaeological Survey of Burma at the time. This is a view of the Great Audience Hall, with two-tiered roofs, which was situated at the eastern end of the palace facing the main city gate of Mandalay. Above it in the centre rises the gold-plated seven-tiered spire or pyatthat known as the "Centre of the Universe", which marked the sacred space of the Lion Throne room below. Mandalay was founded in 1857 by Mindon Min (reigned 1853-78), Burma’s penultimate king, in fulfilment of a Buddhist prophecy that a religious centre would be built at the foot of Mandalay Hill. In 1861 the court was transferred to the newly-built city from the previous capital of Amarapura and it became Burma’s last great royal capital. The royal palace or Nandaw stood at the centre of the walled city and was one of the first buildings to be constructed, re-using many parts of the teak buildings from Amarapura. The glory of Mandalay was shortlived as it was annexed by the British Empire in 1886 after the Third Anglo-Burmese war, and the Burmese monarchy was sent into exile in India. The original palace was destroyed by fire during Allied bombing raids in 1945 during the Second World War but has since been partially reconstructed.
context_page_description: The Mandalay Palace, located in Mandalay, Myanmar, is the last royal palace of the last Burmese monarchy. The palace was constructed between 1857 and 1859 as part of King Mindon's founding of the new royal capital city of Mandalay. The plan of Mandalay Palace largely follows the traditional Burmese palace design, inside a walled fort surrounded by a moat. The palace itself is at the centre of the citadel and faces east. All buildings of the palace are of one storey in height. The number of spires above a building indicated the importance of the area below.
  Mandalay Palace was the primary royal residence of King Mindon and King Thibaw, the last two kings of the country. The complex ceased to be a royal residence and seat of government on 28 November 1885 when, during the Third Anglo-Burmese War, troops of the Burma Field Force entered the palace and captured the royal family. The British turned the palace compound into Fort Dufferin, named after the then viceroy of India. Throughout the British colonial era, the palace was seen by the Burmese as the primary symbol of sovereignty and identity.
context_section_description: This Hall itself is made up of three parts: the North (or Left) Audience Hall, and the South (or Right) Audience Hall; they were so called because, when the King was seated on the Throne, facing the east, the first was to his left and the second to his right. These two parts or wings are connected by a transept running east to west from the flight of steps up to the railing around the throne; this transept was called the Central Audience Hall, because it was flanked by the Right and Left Halls. The Great Audience Hall as a whole measures, from north to south, 77.1 m (253 feet).
  Below the Palace platform, on each side of the flight of steps, on the east, may be seen a few old pattern European cannons and near them some heaps of cannonballs; a few other guns of the same pattern are placed also on the sides of the steps on the west front of the Palace.
  The Great Audience Hall was built with a special eye to external effect, and this object was attained by carving and gilding all the wooden parts of the roofs-except the panels between the two roofs, which were merely gilt-that is, the gables, barge-boards and eaves-boards. The carving is in low relief and consists principally of a lotus and foliage-band on the eaves-boards; the barge-boards are ornamented with a plain scroll design and surmounted by flamboyant which are very effective as a decoration. But the wealth of ornamentation is lavished on the corners of the hipped roofs and the points of the gables as well as their lower extremities. The corners of the hipped (lower) roofs are surmounted by two wooden boards, made up of several joined pieces
  and meeting so as to form a right angle at the corner; the chief motifs are flamboyant, foliage, lotus-bands and guilloches.
  The angle represents a stylized peacock—the emblem of royalty—is surmounted by a finial; below the eaves-boards is a pendant turned in the lathe. This same peacock is everywhere found at the points of the gables, forming a hip-knob, with the pendant below. All these carvings, besides being gilt, were also decorated with simple glass mosaic. The details above given apply mostly to all the other apartments.
caption: The Great Audience Hall in 1903
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