Herodotus‘ Histories are of high importance for Atlantis research

Herodotus lived at a time when the definition of continents recently had changed. Shortly before Herodotus and surely at Solon‘s time, only two continents were known: Europe in the north and Asia in the south. So Libya, i.e. Africa, had simply been considered to be a part of Asia. In Herodotus‘ times Libya had started to be considered as a continent on its own.

Herodotus even started to shift the border between Asia and Libya from the river Nile to the Gulf of Suez, where it is today. It would have been unthinkable to Herodotus to consider Egypt simply as a part of Asia.

But exactly this outdated dualistic view is contained in the Atlantis account, cf. e.g. Timaeus 24b: a style of equipment which the goddess taught of Asiatics first to us, as in your part of the world first to you. 

This is a strong clue that Plato relies on an old account, e.g. an account from Solon‘s time. If Plato invented this, it would have been an astonishingly good invention (what can be said of some other passages in the Atlantis account, too).

The Atlantis account also contains passages based on the three partite view of the world (Timaeus 24e):  the island was larger than Libya and Asia put together. Did Plato transform an old sentence " larger than Asia " based on the dualistic world view into the sentence " larger than Libya and Asia put together " based on the three partite world view? Or is this passage a clue to an Egyptian source, because the Egyptians always made a difference between Asia and Libya, of course in their own words?

Similar names- Herodotus writes of an "Atlantean Sea", of a mountain called "Atlas", of a river called "Atlas" and of a people of  "Atlanteans". All these names derive from "Atlas", a titan of Greek mythology. Are there relations to Plato‘s Atlantis? A detailed analysis clearly shows: incontrary to popular belief there are no relations.

Basically Plato does not establish any connection between king Atlas of Atlantis and the titan Atlas of Greek mythology, although Plato likes demythologizations like that. Plato surely would have used this chance to demythologize titan Atlas, if this was his opinion.

Furthermore the attributes of king Atlas and of titan Atlas differ widely and are in clear contradiction. Now that it is clear that king Atlas of Atlantis and the titan Atlas of Greek mythology are different persons, the names derived from the titan Atlas have clearly no relation to Plato‘s Atlantis.

Plato does not demythologize the titan Atlas but he demythologizes the name of the Atlantean sea by deriving its name from a different person, from king Atlas of Atlantis. So Plato is not identifying king and titan, but replacing titan Atlas by the king Atlas as name-giver of the Atlantean sea.

The Importance of Herodotus' histories for the Atlantis problem (PDF Download Available). Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267981513_The_Importance_of_Herodotus'_histories_for_the_Atlantis_problem [accessed Feb 22 2018].
The Importance of Herodotus' histories for the Atlantis problem (PDF Download Available). Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267981513_The_Importance_of_Herodotus'_histories_for_the_Atlantis_problem [accessed Feb 22 2018].