Reverend Father Henri Fleisch (1 January 1904 – 10 February 1985) was a French

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landsca ...

missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Tho ...

and Orientalist, known for his work on classical Arabic language and Lebanese dialect and

prehistory Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The us ...

Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus lie ...

. Fleisch spent years recording and recovering lithics from prehistoric Lebanese archaeological sites and in 1954, it was confirmed that he had discovered and named a previously unknown proto-

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several pa ...

culture in Lebanon called the Qaraoun culture that used a

flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and start ...

industry he termed Heavy Neolithic. Fleisch was born in Jonvelle ( Haute-Saône),

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. He entered the

Society of Jesus , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders ...

Lyon Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of ...

Fourvière in September 1921 and was ordained a

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

priest on 24 August 1933, he celebrated his first mass at Jonvelle on 27 August. Fleisch was largely self-taught, specialising in

oriental studies Oriental studies is the academic field that studies Near Eastern and Far Eastern societies and cultures, languages, peoples, history and archaeology. In recent years, the subject has often been turned into the newer terms of Middle Eastern stu ...

, for which he earned a doctorate at the Sorbonne in May 1943 with a thesis published on "''Work and Memoirs of the Institute of Ethnology in Paris''". He made many trips abroad and settled in Lebanon, where he discovered in Bikfaya in 1923-1926. He did his military service in Syria and was injured during a confrontation. Mobilized in 1939, he was taken prisoner on 19 June 1940 and held at Stalag XII, from where he was released in February 1941. From August 1945 he taught at the "''Institut des Lettres Orientales''" of

Saint Joseph University Saint Joseph University of Beirut (French: ''Université Saint-Joseph de Beyrouth'', abbreviated to and commonly known as "USJ") is a private Catholic research university located in Beirut, Lebanon, which was founded in 1875 by French Jesuit mis ...

Beirut Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...

.Henri Fleisch (1904-1985) on the website of Museum of Lebanese Prehistory. - The obituary P. Henry FLEISCH SJ. (1904-1985) in Paléorient. 1985, Vol. 11 No. 1. p. 5. It was here that many of his archaeological finds were stored and in 2000 they formed The Museum of Lebanese Prehistory where many of his finds are stored and displayed. The museum celebrated their tenth anniversary with a posthumous exhibition of Fleisch's photography and work entitled "Prehistory vs. Urbanization".Sfeir, Mia., Femme Magazine - Préhistoire VS Urbanisation, le témoignage d’Henri Fleisch - Issue 206 - P.70 Published June 1, 2010
He died, aged 81, in

, where he was buried. He was the author of two hundred forty publications, including the Eastern dialects and was a specialist in Arabic, Greek, Latin, Syriac and Hebrew. He also wrote a small booklet on the French regional

patois ''Patois'' (, pl. same or ) is speech or language that is considered nonstandard, although the term is not formally defined in linguistics. As such, ''patois'' can refer to pidgins, creoles, dialects or vernaculars, but not commonly to jargon o ...

vocabulary A vocabulary is a set of familiar words within a person's language. A vocabulary, usually developed with age, serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge. Acquiring an extensive vocabulary is one of the ...

of Jonvelle in 1951. He was the author of the Treaty of

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

philology Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as ...

in 1961 and 1977. He distinguished himself by combining research prehistory and

geology Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other Astronomical object, astronomical objects, the features or rock (geology), rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology ...

, discovering the site of Naama and carrying out work at Tell Jisr and Ras Beyrouth. Fleisch's most famous works are ''Introduction à l'Étude des langues sémitiques'' (1947), ''L'Arabe classique'' (1968) and ''Traité de philologie arabe, 1-2'' (1961–79).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fleisch, Henri 20th-century French Jesuits French Roman Catholic missionaries French archaeologists People from Haute-Saône 1904 births 1985 deaths Saint Joseph University faculty Jesuit scientists Jesuit missionaries Roman Catholic missionaries in Lebanon French expatriates in Lebanon 20th-century archaeologists