Did aliens visit ancient civilizations? Could Jesus have fathered a dynasty? Did people of the ancient world visit the Americas centuries before Columbus? The public enjoys such questions, which have spawned countless books, movies and television series, but very rarely is any actual evidence produced.
According to many eager writers and television hosts, evidence for long-ago astronauts or early transatlantic voyages can be found in ancient texts. But too often sources remain obscure and some writers have altered or fabricated texts to make their case for extraterrestrials and lost civilizations.
This book examines more than 130 very old texts used to make the case for Atlantis, aliens, fallen angels, the Great Flood, giants, transatlantic voyagers, ancient high technology and many other mysteries. English translations are presented with explanatory notes showing how these texts have been used and abused to make entertaining claims about prehistory.
In the long list of things I'd love to read, I stumbled upon Colavito's work.
It is engaging, critical and all around excellent both for newcomers of the topic and (I suppose) fans of the mythical fringe topics.
For a person with more than two functional neurons, 'Chariot of the Gods' and 'Ancient Aliens' from History Channel (that, on a funny story, here in Mexico, many people thought I was gonna work there because of my History degree, which I always found really funny and tragic) are clearly fake. But for alienated people, these are divine truths or, at least, possible explainations.
Colavito's great achievement, on my opinion, is that he found how these fashionable myths serve the upper classes to maintain their domain. His way of presenting Atlantis and Ancient Aliens really shows how, in the end, this pseudohistorians try to justify traditional practices and economic orders.