Archaeologists have discovered mysterious ancient architecture cut into a rocky landscape on Madagascar, the world's fourth largest island, a study says. The study details recent investigations at Teniky, an isolated inland archaeological site in the Isalo massif, located in the south of the island, which lies off the southeastern coast of the African mainland. The site, which is more than 120 miles from the nearest coast, features "enigmatic" rock-cut architecture that is unique in all of Madagascar and the wider East African coast, according to the study.
But the research has cast new light on Teniky, revealing, among other finds, that the site is "much larger" than previously thought and includes many previously unknown archaeological structures, study lead author Guido Schreurs, a geologist at Switzerland's University of Bern, told . In the first half of the 20th century, visitors to the Teniky site in the Isalo National Park described archaeological structures within a fluvial cirque—an amphitheater-shaped valley formed by river erosion. The structures included man-made terraces, rock-cut niches in the steep cliffs and a rock shelter delimited by walls consisting of carved sandstone blocks.
While doing fieldwork in southern Madagascar in the 1990s, Schreurs heard about the rock shelter, sometimes known as the Grotte des Portugais. "Supposedly, in the 16th century A.D.
, a Portuguese ship had sunk on the Malagasy coast, and the crew had traversed the island to go to anot.