Atlantis: The Seven Seals

David Mattison is a librarian with the B.C. Provincial Archives and
Records Services Library.

Described as an “amateur historian,” the author has allowed his love of Atlantis and Hungarian culture to overpower his critical faculties. This is without a doubt one of the worst books ever published on the Atlantean question. Little more has been contributed to the topic than further confusion and misinformation. The organization of the book, described as chapters “independent from one another, forming a loose link,” may even have caused the author to contradict himself on the matter of whether Atlantis ever existed as a continent.

Most of the book consists of lengthy quotations from various sources, some of which are not listed in the bibliography. In many cases the author has not used primary sources but has simply quoted from contemporary works. The bibliography does not distinguish between original and reprint editions. Unreliable authors such as Erich Von Daniken, Charles Berlitz, Peter Kolosimo, and Peter Tompkins are utilized alongside more scholarly and accurate authorities. Since there is no introduction to summarize the author’s methodology or his objectives, the narrative threads linking the quotations seem to present no clearly discernible or logical pattern of argument.

The final chapter, “Chronological Summary,” presents a rambling hypothesis that most civilizations date from around 3000 B.C. (totally ignoring Plato’s dating of the sinking of Atlantis as around 96 B.C.) and that Hungarians and Sumerians are related. There is no index, and some references in the notes do not appear in the bibliography. In all, a disappointing book that makes no worthwhile contribution to Atlantean mythology.