Madagascar's Enigmatic Rock-Cut Architecture may have been of Zoroastrian origin

An international team of researchers found an enigmatic rock-cut architecture at Teniky, a site in the remote Isalo Massif in southern Madagascar, that has no parallels on the island or the East African coast.

The research was initiated under Guido Schreurs, associate professor at the Institute of Geological Sciences at the University of Bern in Switzerland.

Researchers have documented many newly discovered archaeological structures, including terraces, stone walls, stone basins, and rock-cut structures in various sizes, shapes, and forms constructed in the late first/early second millennia AD

Archaeological excavations and field prospecting at Teniky reveal a much larger and more important archaeological landscape than previously known.

Surprisingly, the closest stylistic parallels to this architecture can be found thousands of kilometers away, in present-day Iran, specifically in the Fars region. The rock-cut niches at Teniky show similarities to those known from various sites throughout Iran, dated to the first millennium or older and related to Zoroastrian funerary practices.



A series of four circular rock-cut niches. Photo: G. Schreurs et al.

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