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Title: Atlantis: The Seven Seals by Zoltan Simon ISBN: 0-9691494-1-7 Publisher: Robinson Crusoe Enterprises Pub. Date: 01 November, 1984 Format: Paperback List Price(USD): $18.00

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Average Customer Rating: 1 (1 review)

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Summary: inadequate evidence and other major problems
Comment: ZS argues for a historical Atlantis in western Atlantic waters, and for a catastrophist and otherwise revisionist account of early human history; he makes or implies forthright statements about a wide range of matters. Many of these are highly controversial and doubtful; others are inadequately informed by our knowledge of the subjects in question. ZS identifies his own approach as 'scientific', in contrast with mainstream methods; but this comparison does not hold up. All this can be well illustrated from his treatment of linguistic matters, which is the area where I myself am best equipped to comment. This aspect of ZS' case involves mainly alleged ancient links - genetic or involving contact - between languages considered by mainstream historical linguists (and historians) to have been isolated from each other in early historic times. Like most such amateurs, ZS relies in this enterprise upon unsystematic comparison of superficial similarities, which yields mainly pseudo-cognates rather than genuine cognates (linguistic forms with a common ancestor). Such methods were abandoned by historical linguists during the 19th Century because they were demonstrably unreliable, and Ringe's recent work has confirmed this in statistical terms; but there remains a vast non-standard tradition of amateur work using these outdated methods and thus obtaining misleading results. ZS himself is especially liable to fall into this trap because of his excessive focus (here and elsewhere) upon vocabulary rather than other, more systematic aspects of linguistic structure. Language and dialect relationships must be assessed in terms of grammar and phonology (the latter even if they involve only borrowing) as well as vocabulary. ZS cites in his support recent work on blood groups and other such physiological groupings. Some of these data do seem to correlate with cultural or linguistic patternings; but the matter is complex and no definitive conclusions are possible as yet. ZS' own Hungary illustrates the problem: the modern Hungarians are genetically similar to the surrounding Slavic-speakers, but their language is unrelated. In this case we know why (invasion and then genetic assimilation of the conquerors), but for such events in the remote past we typically do not. In addition, ZS relies at times on the implausible and largely unsupported ideas of fringe or near-fringe linguists and epigraphists such as Fell, Gordon and the truly 'far-out' Cohane. He also makes various specific errors, for instance where he treats three manifestations of the same Greek word as independent cognates. And he rejects reconstructed proto-languages such as Proto-Indo-European, assessing the evidence/argumentation for such entities in thoroughly confused terms and grossly undervaluing it. This is partly because he wishes to propose alternative genetic and other links between languages (on the weak grounds mentioned above). In summary, ZS's points simply do not manifest enough knowledge of linguistics to include meaningful criticism of existing ideas or alternative analyses which might conceivably replace them. He cannot expect a hearing for his linguistic ideas. Furthermore, he does not deal seriously with the scholarly consensus that Plato's story of Atlantis is fictional. (More generally, he seems reluctant to identify older texts as fictional or even as honestly mistaken; see also below.) Of course, there have been many attempts to suggest locations for a real Atlantis, but most of these cannot be taken seriously and ZS' version appears similar. In his revisions of early history, ZS makes too much use of the implausible and largely unsupported ideas of fringe writers such as Donnelly, Fix, von Daniken etc. He apparently believes that the cases for (a) catastrophist interpretations of early history, (b) the early discovery (and subsequent loss) of advanced technology, and (c) extraterrestrial intervention in that period are much more persuasive than they are. ZS also treats myth in a dubious manner, equating characters from different myth cycles - and identifying them as real persons - without sufficient attention to the associated problems. Like von Daniken and others, ZS regards early religion as involving misinterpretation of extraterrestrials as gods and such. His own theistic views (which he sometimes treats as obviously correct) emerge at times. ZS places much emphasis on his proposals for the major re-structuring of chronology. He may conceivably have something to offer here, but of course it is just as easy to find 'undiscovered' numerical patterns if one wishes as it is to find false cognates, and some of his material is very speculative. There is also a danger in treating ancient sources as reliable on large-scale chronology, especially that of countries other than the authors' homelands or that of much earlier periods. More generally, indeed, ancient and traditional sources have to be interpreted more critically. Like many such writers, ZS believes in academic conspiracies which exclude non-mainstream ideas such as his own and 'excommunicate' those responsible. This did happen at times in the past and occasionally it arguably still happens, but to nothing like the extent claimed here. Most fringe 'scholars' (etc) are not 'excluded' but simply do not know the subjects in question well enough to contribute usefully. ZS's style is also excessively forthright and at times dogmatic; it gives the impression of fringe amateurism and may alienate scholarly readers. In addition, some sections need far more referencing to support the statements made. There also appears to be a nationalistic element in ZS' thinking. This is familiar in the context of amateur attempts to overturn ideas about ancient history and the relationships between languages. In his turn, ZS seeks to exaggerate the influence of Hungarian and the Hungarians on linguistic differentiation and world history, finding pseudo-cognates and grammatical parallels between Hungarian and English, reading the arguably mysterious runic Yarmouth Stone (Nova Scotia) as Hungarian (while others read it in various other ways, in one case also in Hungarian but in the opposite direction and with an utterly different meaning), and at times appearing offended by the suggestion that Hungarian has borrowed from another language rather than vice versa. At best, ZS presents a few interesting minor anomalies; but these are not enough to overthrow well-supported mainstream academic views of the remote past.