Paleolithic flint tool illustrations by Benjamin Harrison

Today is #nationalillustratonday and so for this week's #FindsFriday I thought I would showcase a small sample of the wonderful #illustrations of Benjamin Harrison.

Harrison was a grocer in #igtham between 1837 - 1921 with a keen interest in the ancient past. For over 65 years he collected numerous flint tools throughout Kent. After being told his collection contained #Palaeolithic tools Harrison focused his searches for these implements, with incredible success. In the mid-1880s Harrison began to extend his searching, finding what he termed #Eolithis or "Dawn Stones", which were believed to be the earliest evidence of human made tools. This idea was discounted by the 1950s, but not before Harrison and his colleagues had found a vast number of #Eoliths which were placed in museums across the county and beyond.

Harrison, according to his son Edward (KAS general secretary, 1930s), was a wonderful artist and illustrator drawing and painting several thousand examples of his finds.

The set illustrated here was donated recently to the society by Brian Philp and are contained in an artists notebook with 28 drawings of "Eolithic Implements from the Chalk Plateau of Kent", dating to 1897.

The notebook is now in the KAS library ready for digitisation and recording. In the future it is hoped to put the illustrations on our website, but due to the difficulty of photographing 1800s paper some technical editing needs to be carried out first.

The Summer 2023 newsletter (issue 120, 12 - 24) which was sent out to members contains an article by Frank Beresford on the "Illustrations of Benjamin Harrison" and provides far more detail than we can reproduce here.

If you are a member and have not received the most recent copy please do get in touch with our magazine editor Richard Taylor at richard.taylor@kentarchaeology.org.uk.

Back-copies of our magazine are available on our website - https://www.kentarchaeology.org.uk/publications/newsletters

#Archaeology #Illustrations #archaeologicalillustrations #history #historylovers #kent #heritage #drawings #nationalillustrationday #archive