Until the 1860s, it was illegal to build a house out of stone in Antananarivo (Globle: Capitals answer for Feb 28). Stone was reserved exclusively for the dead. In Malagasy highland culture, stone was considered an inert, cold material, fitting for tombs, but entirely wrong for the living. Houses, marketplaces, even royal palaces were all built from wood, grasses, reeds, and other plant materials, which were seen as warm and alive. The result was a capital city where the most permanent, most carefully constructed buildings in town were not palaces or temples, but family tombs.

This wasn't a fringe custom. It was the law. Even as the Merina kingdom grew into a powerful state controlling most of Madagascar, the royal palace at the Rova, seat of kings and queens, was built entirely from wood. It wasn't until British missionaries introduced brick-making in the 1820s, and a shipwrecked French craftsman named Jean Laborde began using stone and brick for his industrial factories, that attitudes slowly began to shift. When a royal edict finally lifted the restriction in the 1860s, the queen's wooden palace was encased in stone, and wealthy aristocrats quickly followed suit, copying the two-story brick style they'd seen the British missionaries build.

But the old belief left a lasting mark. To this day, many Malagasy families invest more in their ancestral tombs than in their homes, and the tradition of Famadihana, a celebration where families exhume and rewrap their ancestors in fresh shrouds, remains a living practice. In Antananarivo, the dead have always been given the finest architecture in town.

Learn more: Archaeology Magazine

Monday, February 23 to Sunday, March 1

The following are the shortest paths from last week:

Play Forgeous for Mar 2