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Ruins of Istana Damnah (Istana Damnah Daik Lingga)
Title:
Ruins of Istana Damnah (Istana Damnah Daik Lingga)
Artist / Contributor:
Gilles Massot
Date:
Region:
Lingga
Medium:
,
,
NA
URL:
NA
Credit Line:
Photography by Gilles Massot. Scanned and edited by Alina Seow. Captions by Alina Seow and Farizi Noorfauzi.
Credit Line:
Exhibition History:
NA

The ruins of a concrete staircase in the yard behind Masjid Jamik, Lingga's Royal Mosque. Or as labelled in the image, it is now known as "Istana Damnah Daik Lingga". The staircase is amongst other ruins that is preserved -- inlcuding a few decorative elements scattered in the garden and the foundations of a huge harem that was under construction when the Dutch deposed the last Sultan. Preserved as part of history, it is now known as Situs Cagar Budaya (Cultural Heritage Site) -- Istana Damnah Daik Lingga.

In 2000, artist and academic Gilles Massot's focus turned to research with the 2003 book “Bintan, the phoenix of the Malay Archipelago”. Our collective archive features a selection from Gilles Massot's photography slides archive of Riau Islands taken between 2000-2003, which were made during the course of his research.‍


PDF of his book is available online: https://www.academia.edu/43507986/Bintan_Phoenix_Of_The_Malay_Archipelago

Istana Damnah was built by Sultan Sulaiman Badrul Alamsyah III (1857 - 1883), at the prime of the Riau-Lingga Malay sultanate. However, only the ruins of Istana Damnah are left. Located 142 meters away from the site of Istana Damnah is where one would find Situs Istana Bilik 44. It's physical environment appears to be an unfinished plantation. The remains of the building is the foundations of the rooms, which are 50cm wide and 75cm tall from the ground. The materials used as foundation were roughly 22cm long, 11cm wide and 7cm thick. As a whole, the building structure spans 53m long and 36m wide. Even though it was named Room 44, there are only 32 existing rooms found in the remains of the building's foundation structure. It appears that the construction of Room 44 was unfinished, and was only in its initial stages of laying down the foundations for the building. The construction of the site potentially took place during the ruling of Raja Mohammad Yusuf (1859-1900). The factors that resulted in the unfinished construction of Room 44 are still uncertain.

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