Henri Fleisch

Who was Henri Fleisch?

Reverend Father Henri Fleisch was a French archaeologist, missionary and Orientalist, known for his work on classical Arabic language and Lebanese dialect and prehistory in Lebanon. 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 culture in Lebanon called the Qaraoun culture that used a flint industry he termed Heavy Neolithic.

Fleisch was born in Jonvelle, France. He entered the Society of Jesus in Lyon Fourvière in September 1921 and was ordained a Catholic priest on 24 August 1933, he celebrated his first mass at Jonvelle on August 27. Fleisch was largely self-taught, specialising in oriental studies, 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.