Chantal Radimilahy

"Our study of high-resolution satellite images revealed the Teniky site was much larger than previously known. It showed there were more terraces and stone walls on a hill 2km to the west. This led us to take a closer look, hoping to get a better sense of who had lived there and when."

"What we found at Teniky"

"There is no other archaeological site like Teniky in Madagascar. So, the question arises as to what group of people settled there, far inland, and carved the niches and chambers in the cliff walls about 1,000 years ago. The presence of imported ceramics indicates that they took part in the Indian Ocean trade networks at the time but doesn't tell us where they came from."

"Who were the people who lived at Teniky?"

"There are few accounts of Madagascar written at the turn of the first and second millennia AD. Buzurg Ibn Shahriyar, a tenth-century Persian sailor and writer, collected stories from sailors in port towns on the Persian Gulf which suggest that Persian contacts with Madagascar may have existed then. The name Madagascar did not exist at that time but names like "Wak-wak" or "Qumr"/"Komr" may have referred to the island."

"Chinese ceramics in the collection of the Museum of Art and Archaeology of the University of Antananarivo."

"A major contribution to African and Indian Ocean archaeology."