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

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...

missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group who 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.Thoma ...

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

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

Lebanon Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...

. 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 or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

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. Historically, flint was widely used to make stone tools and start ...

industry he termed Heavy Neolithic. Fleisch was born in Jonvelle (

Haute-Saône Haute-Saône (; Frainc-Comtou: ''Hâte-Saône''; English: Upper Saône) is a department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region of northeastern France. Named after the river Saône, it had a population of 235,313 in 2019.

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

. He entered the

Society of Jesus The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rome. It was founded in 1540 ...

Lyon Lyon (Franco-Provençal: ''Liyon'') is a city in France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of the French Alps, southeast of Paris, north of Marseille, southwest of Geneva, Switzerland, north ...

Fourvière in September 1921 and was ordained a

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

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 studie ...

, 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 Bikfaya (, also spelled Bickfaya, Beckfayya, or Bekfaya) is a town in the Matn District region of Mount Lebanon. Its stone houses with red-tiled roofs resting amidst pine and oak forests make Bikfaya one of the most sought-after suburbs of Beirut a ...

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 in

Beirut Beirut ( ; ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, just under half of Lebanon's population, which makes it the List of largest cities in the Levant region by populatio ...

.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". 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'' (, 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 or sl ...

vocabulary A vocabulary (also known as a lexicon) is a set of words, typically the set in a language or the set known to an individual. The word ''vocabulary'' originated from the Latin , meaning "a word, name". It forms an essential component of languag ...

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

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

philology Philology () is the study of language in Oral tradition, oral and writing, written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also de ...

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

geology Geology (). is a branch of natural science concerned with the Earth and other astronomical objects, the rocks of which they are composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Earth ...

, 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 People from Haute-Saône 1904 births 1985 deaths Academic staff of Saint Joseph University Jesuit scientists Jesuit missionaries Roman Catholic missionaries in Lebanon French expatriates in Lebanon 20th-century French archaeologists