Bandar Kuri (around Morombe)
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Ibn Majid (1470) in his Hawiya is the only author to mention this place. Ibn Majid in his Hawija gives at 5 fingers for Nach: Haduda at 22.4°S Bandar Kuri at 21.7°S Rufati at 21.7°S.
Taken from: Taken from: Madagascar, Comores et Mascareignes à travers la Hawiya d'Ibn Magid (866 H. /1462). Par François VIRE et Jean-Claude HEBERT.
The greatest confusion reigns about this place name that Ibn Majid quotes several times with different heights of the Big Dipper. A bandar Kuri would be at five-fingers on the west coast of Madagascar, and Khoury places it on his map at Morondava. At a height of one finger, Ibn Majid locates a "bay of Kuri" (gubba Kuri) and which could correspond to the bay of Androka.
Seydi Ali Reis (d. 1562) in al-Muhit has the same places.
Note: I would like to put it opposite the Bazaruto islands (that is around Morombe) as they are also five-fingers. No intensive searches have been bone along the coast of this part of Madagascar. (See Robert E. Dewar and Henry T. Wright under). But 135km inland from Morombo at Rezoky and 35km further in Asambalahy and again further at Teniky important medieval sites were discovered where Islamic and Chinese wares arrived imported through a still undiscovered harbor on the western coast.
Mangoky River (N of Morombo).
With small ships one can move in strait line 200km into the interior. Following the river it will be off-course way longer. But already after 170km (strait line) at Beroroha you are the closest to Teniky. Which is from there 70 km strait south.
There are oral history sources recording a long tradition of people in the Velondriake area (coastal area just south of Morombe) exchanging marine goods for agricultural products and pottery vessels from the middle valley of the Mangoky River during lean seasons or droughts. (Dylan S. Davis 2023).
By 1500 major Swahili settlements existed on the lower Manambolo (of 9000-10000 inhabitants) and along the rivers Morondava, Mangoky, and Kitombo in Menabe; Boeny and Mazalagem (6000-7000 inhabitants) in Boina Bay …………… (Gwyn Campbell 2016)
In 1613, Father Luis Mariano visited the part of the Menabe where the Manambolo flows into the sea. In 1616, he went back to the same district and stayed there for a year preaching the Christian religion. He wrote that the town, which was situated on the Manambolo and one league from the sea, had between nine and ten thousand inhabitants. He also said that the banks of the Morondava, the Mangoky and the Kitombo were also heavily populated. We are therefore led inevitably to believe that it was above all the slave trade, which flourished for centuries , that contributed to a very great extent to the depopulation of this unfortunate country. (Revue de Madagascar organe du Comité de Madagascar 1906).
Taken from: The Rise of Trading Ports and Development of the Highlands. Philippe Beaujard.
The sites of Rezoky (thirteenth–fifteenth century) and Asambalahy (fourteenth–sixteenth century), reveal the arrival of Africans on the western Malagasy coast; these groups were herders and smiths, and practiced hunting. These sites had connections with trade in the Mozambique Channel, as shown by the discovery of ceramics from the Muslim world (Rezoky, and Asambalahy) and China (Rezoky).
Taken from: The Culture History of Madagascar by Robert E. Dewar and Henry T. Wright.
There are no published intensively surveyed areas along the west coast, but excavations at Rezoky and Asambalahy to the east of Morombe, 135 km inland, provide important data on site structure and economy (Vérin, 1971). We do, however, suggest revisions of the datings for these sites. At the former site, probably thirteenth-fifteenth centuries given the occurrence of late varieties of sgraffiato and Far Eastern green glaze, there are many local spherical jars with appliques and oblique incised lines, similar to ceramics of the fourteenth century Ambinanibe Phase of the southeast, and a few bowls with triangular impressions. At the latter site, dated to the fourteenth-sixteenth centuries by the occurrence of Far Eastern green-glazed bowl sherds, the local ceramics have jars with panels of incised vertical parallel lines and appliques and arrays of rectangular or oval punctates. Independent absolute dating of these sites is needed. Rezoky is larger, covering several hectares, with not only a few sherds of imported pottery, but also imported glass beads. Asambalahy covers about a hectare. Domestic cows dominate the faunal remains of both, with some bones of both lemurs and tenrecs. Rezoky also had the earliest bone of a domestic dog yet reported from Madagascar and possibly the giant Aepyornis. Both sites had much iron slag and a number of iron tools and sharpening stones, indicating local iron-working. Because the two sites are in different valleys, perhaps with different grazing potentials, and are from different time spans, perhaps when imported goods had varying availability, we cannot attribute the size and ceramic differences between the sites to social differences between their occupants. Intensive regional survey is needed to place these data in perspective.
Note: since Vérin in 1971 noted that no archaeological work was done on the coast, there was a Morombo Archaeological project from 2011 till at least 2019 but no results have been announced.
Teniky
Taken from: The History of Civilisation in North Madagascar Pierre Vérin 1986
P90-91
The existence in the sixteenth century at Teniky of a civilization, some of the characteristics of which are similar to those found in the ports of the north-west.
A site was discovered at Teniky in the middle of the Isalo , to the north of Ranohira , and the west of Tameantsoa , near the early village of Sahanafo . This site called ' Caves of the Portuguese ' (now called Grande Grotte) has been explored by various archaeologists , including R. Paulian and Dommergues , Ginter , Hébert , Rakotoarisoa and Pierre Vérin. The traces that have so far been found consist of a great shelter beneath a rock obstructed by a double wall , a little cave artificially hollowed out of the side of the cliff and several other artificial excavations in the rock or the rocky slope . It is certainly tempting to attribute these traces to shipwrecked Portuguese sailors from the Morombe district or the Bay of Saint Augustine . According to a written source , some shipwrecked Portuguese penetrated into the interior round about 1527 and may have reached the Matitanana district , which was certainly occupied sporadically by the Portuguese , where they had a warehouse built in 1515. (This old theory about Portuguese sailors has been abandoned by recent authors).
On the other hand , the mysterious amphitheater at Teniky contains more than two little artificial caves . In fact , the entire periphery of the upper valley is covered with terraces providing support for houses which are very characteristic of the early Sakalava settlements built on hill slopes . (See the description of Ampasitsaika in the Betsiboka region , with which this site can be compared.) We can only conclude that there must have been a large village of Madagascans at Teniky . The arrangements in the large cave are not very different in principle from those in some of the Betsileo caves in the Andoharanomaitso or the Isandra district . The differences are only in the details - cut stones carefully fitted together (sometimes with tenon joints) and doors with mouldings and arches . A cavity on the north side of the large cave has rectangular panels with decorations cut into the rock. The ornamentation and the position of this cavity is reminiscent of a mihrab , so that it may in fact have been a mosque .
Excavations in the floor of the cave have not brought to light any evidence of an early level of occupation. A fragment of an imported jar passed on to me by M. Ginter was identified by M. Kirkman as having belonged to a Chinese jar of the sixteenth century . It was found near the surface on the north slope of the amphitheater and forms a very valuable chronological landmark . We may therefore conclude that , while Rezoky and Asambalahy were flourishing , there was a large Sakalava village further to the east where Islamic peoples were living.
Taken from: Teniky: enigmatic architecture at an archaeological site in southern Madagascar by Guido Schreurs et al. Azania 2024.
Teniky is an isolated inland archaeological site in the Isalo massif of southern Madagascar, with enigmatic rock-cut architecture that is unique in all of Madagascar and the wider East African coast. Our investigations at Teniky have led to the discovery of further archaeological structures beyond the cirque. (i.e. an amphitheatre-shaped valley formed by fluvial erosion), which included man-made terraces, rock-cut niches in the steep cliffs and a rock shelter delimited by walls consisting of carved sandstone blocks. These structures include further terraces, rock-cut niches, stone basins and carved sandstone walls on a hill 2.5 km to the west, as well as sandstone quarries and dry stone walls in the valley in between. AMS radiocarbon dating indicates that they were constructed in the c. tenth to twelfth century AD. Pottery sherds at Teniky include Chinese and Southeast Asian ceramics dating to broadly the eleventh to fourteenth centuries. The presence of imported ceramics indicates that those living at Teniky participated in Indian Ocean trade networks in medieval times, despite being over 200 km from the nearest coast. The closest stylistic parallels to the enigmatic rock-cut architecture at Teniky are found in present-day Iran, particularly in the Fars region, where rock-cut niches dating to the first millennium AD or earlier have been attributed to Zoroastrian communities. We tentatively interpret the rock-cut architecture at Teniky as part of a former necropolis made by settlers with Zoroastrian origins.
Teniky: Chinese and Southeast Asian ceramics: a) eleventh/thirteenth-century sherd found during excavation b–c) twelfth-century sherds found during surface prospecting (d–i): thirteenth/fourteenth-century sherds also found during surface prospecting. The estimated ages of the ceramics are courtesy of Bing Zhao.
Most rock-cut niches in the cirque are considered to have had a ritual function, including the semi-circular and rectangular niches and the niche with a raised bench inside the rock shelter (the Grande Grotte). The Petite Grotte and the large niche in the Grande Grotte are tentatively interpreted as chamber tombs, where bones stored in astōdans (Pahlavi for bone-receptacle, ossuary) could have been placed on the raised benches along the sides.
The rock shelter (Grande Grotte) is delimited by two parallel stone walls consisting of sandstone blocks, which have been carefully squared and stacked without the use of mortar.
The inner wall contains an opening, probably representing an entrance to the rock shelter. Bevelled blocks are visible on either side of the opening at the base and on one side about 150 cm above ground level, suggesting that the entrance might once have held some kind of closure. The initial dimensions of the inner wall closing off the rock shelter are approximately 15 m long, up to 3 m high and 70 cm wide.
Parallel to the inner wall are the remnants of a similarly constructed sandstone wall around eight metres away. This outer wall has a width of about 80 cm, while its maximum height above ground level is about 120 cm. The construction style of the inner and outer walls at the Grande Grotte is unique within Madagascar and is also unknown on the East African coast. The sandstone blocks of the walls were most likely sourced from the quarries discovered east and west of the Sahanafo River 1 to 1.5km away.