Army helicopters had been circling overhead but then a sudden quiet fell over the amphitheater as the hearse arrived. Eight warrant officers representing the various services and divisions of the South African National Defense Force carried the casket, led by a military chaplain in a purple stole. The officers set down the coffin and removed the flag.

Motorcycle-riding police officers had escorted the hearse from a military hospital outside of Pretoria to the Union Buildings.

"I just hope I won't cry," said Paul Letageng, 47, an employee there. "It's amazing to think that 19 years ago he was inaugurated there, and now he's lying there. If he was not here we would not have had peace in South Africa."

Mandela emerged from 27 years in prison under the white racist government in 1990, appealed for forgiveness and reconciliation and became president in 1994 after the country's first all-race democratic elections.

People lined the streets to watch the procession drive slowly to the Union Buildings. They sang old songs from the struggle against the apartheid regime and called out their farewells to Mandela, who died Dec. 5 at the age of 95. Traffic was backed up for several kilometers (miles) on a highway leading into Pretoria.

President Jacob Zuma named the amphitheater after Mandela by decree Tuesday. The Union Buildings, described by the South African government as a "modern-day acropolis," sit atop a hill overlooking Pretoria. The architect who designed it envisioned its two wings, made of half a million cubic feet (14,100 cubic meters) of stone, representing the Afrikaans and English languages spoken in the country '€” but none of the land's native languages.

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