Enigmatic archaeological site in Madagascar may have been built by people with Zoroastrian origins, research suggests

At the turn of the first millennium AD, an unknown group of people lived in the inland Isalo massif of southern Madagascar. Here, they built vast terraces and carved large stone chambers and small hollow rock niches. The architecture is unlike anything else found in Madagascar or the adjacent East African coast. Who built these structures, when they arrived, and why was unknown.

However, research by archaeologists Prof. Dr. Schreurs and his colleagues published in Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa suggest that a Zoroastrian community in Madagascar may have constructed the archaeological site of Teniky around 1,000 years ago.

Today, Teniky is located in the Isalo National Park. The site’s existence has been known for over 100 years; however, no detailed excavations have been undertaken there until now. The site was visited by French naturalists Alfred and Guillaume Grandidier in the 1940s, who hypothesized that the site had been constructed by passing shipwrecked Portuguese sailors as they traversed the island in hopes of coming across a port. Two decades later, a trench excavation during the 1960s uncovered a Chinese jar sherd dating to the 16th century.

Schreurs explains why the site was not investigated in greater detail until now, “Arriving at the site requires a strenuous walk of nearly 20 km across a rugged terrain. All the equipment and food has to be carried to the site. It also has to be mentioned that archaeological research in Madagascar always requires collaboration with local institutions and authorizations from different ministries (which is sometimes challenging).

“Our project is a collaborative project between the Institut de Civilizations/Musée d’Art et d’Archeologie (ICMAA) of the University of Antananarivo, the University of Bern and the University of Fribourg.”

In 2019, high-resolution satellite images revealed Teniky’s true extent, motivating Schreurs and his colleagues to undertake a detailed archaeological excavation.

The field surveying and excavation were conducted for both the known structures at Teniky and those identified in the satellite images. Among the known structures were the Grande Grotte and its smaller sister, the Petit Grotte, two rock-cut chambers held up by massive stone pillars with carved benches along the walls. The sandstone wall described by the French naturalists was still present at the Grande Grotte, albeit partially collapsed.

Across the rest of Teniky, they found dozens of circular and rectangular stone niches carved into the cliff sides, some of which had circular recesses suggesting they could be closed off by a wooden or stone slab. They also uncovered over 30 hectares of man-made terraces, rock-cut conglomerate boulders, stone basins, circular and rectangular stone structures, and ceramic sherds.

Based on the charcoal recovered from the excavation and the ceramic sherds, it was suggested that the site was occupied during the 10th and 12th centuries. The sherds were not of local origin, suggesting the individuals who had lived here had some form of connection to the Indian Ocean trade network.

The sherds included Southeast Asian ceramics dated to the 11th and 13th centuries, Chinese celadon and Southeast Asian stoneware, both dating to around the 11th and 14th centuries.

This meant that the site was unlikely to have been constructed by the Portuguese, as the first Portuguese ships did not sail the Indian Ocean until 1498, which post-dates the proposed construction of Teniky by a few centuries.

Since the Portuguese did not likely build the structures, nor were similar structures found anywhere in Madagascar or the East African coast, the researchers had to look elsewhere. Considering the local Malagasy Madagascan population has genetic, cultural, and linguistic ties to Austronesia, India, Arabia, and Persia, these places were investigated for similar structures.

According to Schreurs, “While reviewing the literature, I was struck by the mention of rock-cut niches in various shapes and sizes in many regions throughout Iran, including the Fars region. I did find photographs of these niches in several publications, and there were niches with recesses—just as at Teniky—indicating that they were initially probably closed off by a wooden or stone slab; these niches most likely served as bone ossuaries.”

This led them to hypothesize that Tenkiy was potentially of Zoroastrian origin.

“Most archaeologists associate the niches in Iran with Zoroastrian funeral rites. So, that’s how the initial potential link with Zoroastrian practices came up. At the same time, from primary historical sources, we know that the coastal region of Iran (e.g. the port town of Siraf) was involved in maritime trade since Sassanid times and that ships from Siraf were sailing the oceans as far as China and East Africa,” said Schreurs.

“This trade continued when the Arabs conquered Persia in the 7th century and imposed Islam. However, it is also known from primary historical sources that for quite some time, probably until the 10th century, different religions (such as Zoroastrians, Muslims, Jews and Christians) coexisted in these Iranian port towns.

“Although I would like to stress that our interpretation linking the rock-cut architecture with Zoroastrian practices is tentative, the stylistic similarities of the stone basins and tables found at Teniky and those used in Zoroastrian ritual ceremonies seem to point in the same direction.”

Zoroastrians believe that one should not bury a body directly in the ground because the body is seen as polluting. Instead, during funerary practices, bodies were left in places of display above ground in niches called “dakhmas” in Pahlavi. Natural decay and consumption by scavengers reduced the body to bones. These bones would then be transported into smaller circular niches that could be closed off, called “astōdans.”

However, none of the niches at Teniky contained bones; Schreurs elaborates on why this may have been the case, “If the smaller holes in the cliffs represent bone ossuaries that are a thousand years old, it is possible that human skeletal remains underwent considerable deterioration, but even then, one would expect some remains, such as teeth and denser bone, to be present.

“Steve Goodman, an American field biologist at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, who has conducted research in Madagascar for nearly 30 years, mentioned to me, and I quote from his email: ‘It is certainly possible that the human remains were removed by subsequent people of the area, perhaps with the focus of the material being used for different types of black magic, which still goes on today at some of the Bara tomb sites.’ The Bara people are an ethnic group living in the Isalo National Park region.”

It is thus likely that from a historical, archaeological and architectural standpoint, the structures of Teniky were built around the turn of the first millennium by a Zoroastrian community. However, exactly when this community first came to Madagascar, why and for what reason they abandoned the site is unknown.

Further research will be necessary to unravel these questions and prove or dispute the initial hypotheses of the Zoroastrian origins of the site.

“We will return to Teniky in 2025 for further archaeological excavations. We plan a Lidar survey to visualize structures and terraces in great detail, helping us to detect structures we might have missed otherwise. An area that could be the subject of more detailed research is a site, c. 80 x 80 m, in the Sahanafo valley delimited by stone walls,” said Schreurs.

“During surface prospecting, we found Chinese and Middle Eastern imported pottery just outside of this area. It might be worthwhile to do excavations here and see if we find further material culture that might hint at the origin/culture/religion of those who once settled at Teniky and tell us more about how they lived.”

© 2024 Science X Network