File:Lily Throne Hall, Mandalay Palace.jpg

English: Photograph of the Lily Throne Room in 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 general view of the exterior of the Lily Throne Room. It was one of eight in the Royal Palace and was situated on the west face. Following Burmese tradition the palace was built on an east-west axis, with the main public state rooms on the east and the more private women’s quarters on the opposite face towards the rear. The throne room stood in the Anauk Samok hall where the King and the Chief Queen held audiences, in the area occupied by the Chief Queen and other female members of the royal family. In 1885, Mandalay was annexed by the British Empire as part of the occupation of Upper Burma and the Burmese monarchy was exiled to India. During the occupation this part of the Palace was taken over as the premises of the Upper Burma Club and the throne room was used as the Ladies' Reading Room. Founded in 1857, Mandalay was 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 the former capital Amarapura. The original palace was destroyed by fire during Allied bombing raids in 1945 during the Second World War but has since been partially reconstructed.