Talk:Teniky

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A fact from Teniky appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 11 November 2024 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that an enigmatic ancient site deep in Madagascar (pictured) may have been built by Zoroastrians?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2024/November. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Teniky.

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Kimikel talk 13:48, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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Mysterious rock-cut niches litter the cliff faces of Teniky in southern Madagascar

... that an enigmatic ancient site deep in Madagascar may have been built by Zoroastrians?

Source: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/madagascar-teniky-mystery-rock-settlement-zoroastrian

Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Fijian Labour Corps

Created by Zanahary (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 12 past nominations.

꧁Zanahary꧂ 03:09, 14 October 2024 (UTC).[reply]

NatGeo link provided above is subscription-only, and is not listed in the article yet; reviewers with access will be needed at some point. But all the same, Zanahary (talk · contribs), keep up the good work on Malagasy topics here! --Slgrandson (How's my egg-throwing coleslaw?) 20:30, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I have fixed the lack of the NG article (I’ll add more citations as I expand the section on archaeology). One can access the article at archive.ph. Thanks Slgrandson! I took a long break, but I am easing back into wiki. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 23:33, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook eligibility:

Cited:
Interesting:
Other problems: - Listed below

QPQ: Done.

Overall: This is splendid work Zanahary. It is new enough, long enough, cited and neutral. The hook is VERY interesting, and I was immediately drawn to it. My one concern is that the citation used for the hook here is not used within the article it seems. It is a small detail but would be ideal to add it in, ping me when you're done and it should be all good. Ornithoptera (talk) 21:43, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The issue is resolved! Thanks very much for your review and kind comments. I am working on getting photos released from Schreurs' expedition; let's see if anyone is willing.꧁Zanahary꧂ 00:45, 17 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Ornithoptera: Have your concerns been resolved, and is this approved? If not, what else needs to be done? Z1720 (talk) 23:25, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies for not getting back to this sooner, I fell ill and it slipped my immediate memory. Everything should be fine now, keep up the splendid work Zanahary. Ornithoptera (talk) 05:49, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Gender issue

This article refers to 'petit grotte' and 'grande grotte'. "Grotte" in French is a feminine noun, and correctly the first should be 'petite grotte'. If for some reason the first namers thought the noun was masculine and erroneously used 'petit grotte' for that reason, they would have named the other 'grand grotte', and I suppose one might just about argue that such usage has now been established by custom in this particular instance. But we really cannot have the noun being feminine in one case and masculine in the other at the same time! Deipnosophista (talk) 18:06, 11 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That’s what they were each called. I know it’s "wrong", but it’s in the sources, and entirely likely that it derives from a Malagasy creole anyways. It shouldn’t be “corrected”. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 19:46, 11 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Pseudoarchaeology?

Given the extraordinary nature of the claims made by the authors (which in my view are reminiscent of Gavin Menzies' claims around Chinese influence around the globe), I'm quite concerned by the reliability of the Schreurs et al. source used extensively in the article:

The lead author and expedition leader Guido Schreurs is a geologist with no apparent archaeological qualifications (despite a number of sources reporting on the article describing him as an archaeologist).
None of the co-authors listed appear to have any expertise in Persian/Middle Eastern archaeology, let alone in Zoroastrian temple architecture. This is concerning given their hypothesis is based solely on architectural comparisons.
The lead sentences of the article state that "There is still considerable debate on the origin of the Malagasy population and when the first settlers arrived. Contributions of [...] Persian populations have been suggested".
- The source cited for this is Heiske et al. (2021); the only mention of Persian populations in Heiske is an offhand reference to speculation from 17th-century French missionary Charles Nacquart. Heiske does not seriously contemplate any Persian influence in Madagascar and in fact explicitly rules it out. For Schreurs to cite this source as any form of endorsement of Persian genetic input into the Malagasy population is exceptionally misleading.
As further evidence of Persian interaction with Madagascar, Schreurs cites the writings of Buzurg Ibn Shahriyār, the supposed author of The Wonders of India.
- Recent writing on The Wonders of India describes Buzurg as "otherwise unknown" and the attribution of Wonders to him as "apocryphal and late". Leaving aside the question of Buzurg's existence, mention of Madagascar in the Wonders is predicated on identifying the island with al-Wakwak, which is far from universally accepted.
The article states "If the rock-cut architecture and associated stone basins at Teniky are the work of a Zoroastrian community that settled in the Isalo Massif about a thousand years ago, this would strongly point to a former Persian presence in southern Madagascar"
- This reasoning is clearly fallacious; the absence of any evidence of a Persian presence in southern Madagascar is evidence that Teniky did not hold a Zoroastrian redoubt, not the other way around.
The authors themselves acknowledge some massive theoretical leaps which are nowhere near adequately explained away: Despite the fact that no traces of human bones have yet been found in any of the niches at Teniky, we tentatively interpret the assemblage of rock-cut structures, stone walls and stone basins as part of a former necropolis.

Ultimately as a non-academic there's not much I can do other than wait for academics to provide their own responses, but I would strongly urge caution in use of this source until others within the field have had a chance to respond (and I don't mean the article on AncientOrigins.net). I T B F 📢 18:46, 11 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting notes! Thanks for raising this. I’ll note that Schreurs is a pretty widely-cited archaeologist (in that he’s published on archaeology) in the topic area of Madagascar, being the living expert of, at least, Vohemar. The Nat Geo article also cites another scientist saying the Zoroastrian theory is plausible, though I don’t know what his qualifications are. I’m also not an academic, so I can’t do anything about this either. Since this study has attracted a lot of attention, hopefully further excavations and input from other researchers will roll in. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 19:45, 11 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm worried by new papers with unproven theories. Not only does he have no background in archeology he's also published that another Madagascar site was possibly Chinese The Rasikajy civilization in northeast Madagascar: a pre-European Chinese community? Secretlondon (talk) 00:06, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Huh, this looks pretty bad. I added this to my watchlist after thinking that this seemed unusual. ~ Pbritti (talk) 03:45, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]