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NEWS October 2024
OCTOBER 2024 The recent cyber attack on the Internet Archive is deplorable and can be reasonably compared with the repeated burning of the Great Library of Alexandria. I have used the Wayback Machine extensively, but, until the full extent of the permanent damage is clear, I am unable to assess its effect on Atlantipedia. At […]Read More »
Joining The Dots
I have now published my new book, Joining The Dots, which offers a fresh look at the Atlantis mystery. I have addressed the critical questions of when, where and who, using Plato’s own words, tempered with some critical thinking and a modicum of common sense.Read More »
Christopher Colombus
Meizon
Meizon is given the sole meaning of ‘greater’ in the respected Greek Lexicon of Liddell & Scott. Furthermore, in Bury’s translation of sections 20e -26a of Timaeus there are eleven instances of Plato using megas (great) meizon (greater) or megistos (greatest). In all cases, great or greatest is employed except just one, 24e, which uses the comparative meizon, which Bury translated as ‘larger’! J.Warren Wells concluded that Bury’s translation in this single instance is inconsistent with his other treatments of the word and it does not fit comfortably with the context[787.85]. This inconsistency is difficult to accept, so although meizon can have a secondary meaning of ‘larger’ it is quite reasonable to assume that the primary meaning of ‘greater’ was intended.
Jürgen Spanuth addressed this problem in Atlantis-The Mystery Unravelled [017.109] noting that “In other parts of the Atlantis report misunderstandings easily arose. Plato asserts that Atlantis was ‘larger’, ‘more extensive’ (meizon),than Libya and Asia Minor. The Greek word ‘meizon’ can mean both ‘larger in size’ and ‘more powerful.’ As the size of the Atlantean kingdom is given between two hundred and three hundred miles, whereas Asia Minor is considerably bigger, in this context the word ‘meizon’ should be translated not by ‘larger in size’ but by ‘more powerful’, which corresponds much better to the actual facts.”
In 2006, on a now-defunct website of his, Wells noted that “Greater can mean larger, but this meaning is by no means the only possible meaning here; his overall usage of the word may show he meant greater in some other way.”
It is also worth considering that Alexander the Great, (Aléxandros ho Mégas) was so-called, not because of his physical size, apparently, he was short of stature, but because he was a powerful leader.
The word has entered Atlantis debates in relation to its use in Timaeus 24e ’, where Plato describes Atlantis as ‘greater’ than Libya and Asia together and until recently has been most frequently interpreted to mean greater ‘in size’, an idea that I previously endorsed. However, some researchers have suggested that he intended to mean greater ‘in power’.
Other commentators do not seem to be fully aware that ‘Libya’ and ‘Asia’ had completely different meanings at the time of Plato. ‘Libya’ referred to part or all of North Africa, west of Egypt, while ‘Asia’ was sometimes applied to Lydia, a small kingdom in what is today Turkey. Incidentally, Plato’s statement also demonstrates that Atlantis could not have existed in either of these territories as ‘a part cannot be greater than the whole.’
A more radical, but less credible, interpretation of Plato’s use of ‘meizon’ came from the historian P.B.S. Andrews suggested that the quotation has been the result of a misreading of Solon’s notes. He maintained that the text should be read as ’midway between Libya and Asia’ since in the original Greek there is only a difference on one letter between the words for midway (meson) and larger than (meizon). This suggestion was supported by the classical scholar J.V. Luce and more recently on Marilyn Luongo‘s website(a), which is now closed.
Luongo attempted to link Mesopotamia with Atlantis, beginning with locating the ‘Pillars of Heracles‘ at the Strait of Hormuz and then using the highly controversial interpretation of ‘meizon‘ meaning ‘between’ rather than ‘greater’ she proceeded to argue that Mesopotamia is ‘between’ Asia and Libya and therefore is the home of Atlantis! She cited a paper by Andreea Haktanir to justify this interpretation of meizon(a).
This interpretation is quite interesting, particularly if the Lydian explanation of ‘Asia’ mentioned above is correct. Viewed from either Athens or Egypt we find that Crete is located ‘midway’ between Lydia and Libya.
Jacques R. Pauwels also supported Andrews’ controversial interpretation of Plato’s text (Tim.24d-e) in his 2010 book Beneath the Dust of Time [1656]. Therefore, he believes that the text should have described Atlantis as being between Libya and Asia rather than greater than Libya and Asia combined, arguably pointing to the Minoan Hypothesis.
As there are hundreds of islands ‘between’ Libya and Asia in the Aegean, this interpretation is very imprecise and useless as a geographical pointer.
In 2021, Diego Ratti, proposed in his new book Atletenu [1821], an Egyptian location for Atlantis, centred on the Hyksos capital, Avaris. In that context, he found it expedient to interpret ‘meizon’ in Tim. 24e & Crit.108e as meaning between Libya and Asia, which Avaris clearly is. I pressed Ratti on this interpretation and, after further study, he responded with a more detailed explanation for his conclusion(d). This is best read in conjunction with the book.
>>Some years ago, the late R. Cedric Leonard offered the following contribution to the meizon debate:
In Plato’s time (4th century B.C.) he would have written in large (all-capitals), continuous (no spaces between words), Athenian characters. The old Greek word meson would look like MESON in the Athenian script of Plato’s time. But mezon would look like MEION – the ancient Z closely resembled our modern capital letter I – the difference between the S and Z in the large Athenian script is obvious. (The Greek Z resembling our Roman Z is modern and does not apply to the older Attic scripts.)
But even in the later minuscule script the s and z in no wise resemble each other. A minuscule z (zeta) looks like ? while a medial s (sigma) looks like ? (absolutely nothing alike). The final backbreaker is that Plato included the same comparison in his Critias (108), in which his copyists would have to have made an identical mistake in that work as well. The odds are against the same identical mistake occuring in two separate works.(e) (see link for actual characters)<<
In relation to all this, Felice Vinci has explained that ancient mariners measured territory by the length of its coastal perimeter, a method that was in use up to the time of Columbus. This would imply that the island of Atlantis was relatively modest in extent – I would speculate somewhere between the size of Cyprus and Sardinia. An area of such an extent has never been known to have been destroyed by an earthquake.
Until the 21st century, it was thought by many that meizon must have referred to the physical size of Atlantis rather than its military power. However, having read a paper[750.173] delivered by Thorwald C. Franke at the 2008 Atlantis Conference, I was persuaded otherwise. His explanation is that “for Egyptians, the world of their ‘traditional’ enemies was divided in two: To the west, there were the Libyans, to the east there were the Asians. If an Egyptian scribe wanted to say, that an enemy was more dangerous than the ‘usual’ enemies, which was the case with the Sea Peoples’ invasion, then he would have most probably said, that this enemy was ‘more powerful than Libya and Asia put together’”.
This is a far more elegant and credible explanation than any reference to physical size, which forced researchers to seek lost continental-sized land masses and apparently justified the negativity of sceptics. Furthermore, it reinforces the Egyptian origin of the Atlantis story, demolishing any claim that Plato concocted the whole tale. If it had been invented by Plato he would probably have compared Atlantis to enemy territories nearer to home, such as the Persians.
This interpretation of meizon has now been ‘adopted’ by Frank Joseph in The Destruction of Atlantis[102.82], but without giving any due credit to Franke(b). No surprise there.!
(b) https://lost-origins.com/atlantis-no-lost-continent/ (offline Jan. 2018) See: Archive 2349
(c) https://web.archive.org/web/20070212101539/https://greekatlantis.com/
(d) More on Atlantis between Asia and Libya (archive.org)
(e) https://web.archive.org/web/20170113130726/http://www.atlantisquest.com/Plato.html *
Garden of Eden *
The Garden of Eden, like Atlantis, has excited the imagination of many over the centuries. Its location has been the subject of what was sometimes wild speculation that offered a range of locations compared with the variety of sites proposed for Atlantis.
The traditional belief was that the ‘Garden’ had been situated in Mesopotamia between the Euphrates and Tigris as noted in the Bible. Athanasius Kircher, who is better known to many for his speculative map of Atlantis located in the Atlantic Ocean also produced a plan of the Garden of Eden in what is now southern Iraq. David J. Gibson (1904-1966) arrived at a similar conclusion placing ‘Eden’ just south of Baghdad in his book, The Land of Eden Located, now available online(t).
The T&T Clark Encyclopedia of Second Temple Judaism offers a clue to the sort of difficulties that ‘Garden seekers’ must deal with, in the Garden of Eden entry. “as an earthly garden, its specific location within both the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple literature. Thus, some texts place it in the east (Gen 2:8; 1En.32; Jub 8:16; 2 En. [rec.32] 42:3, 65:10; Philo QG 1:7; Leg 1:56; Josephus, Ant. 1.3), while others place it in the west (Gen 3:24; Josephus, JW 2.155), north (Ezek 28:13; 1En. 61.1), or northwest (1 En.24-25, 70:3).”(ap)
More recently, Robert McRoberts in an article about the rivers of Eden included a map by Arianna Ravenswood, who placed Eden northwest of Babylon in what is now the Iraqi Province of Diyala(u).
Within the same region is a submerged location at the head of the Persian Gulf promoted by journalist, Dora Jane Hamblin (1920-1993),(av) who highlighted(av) the work of archaeologist, Juris Zarins (1945-2023)(w). In his theory, the Bible’s Gihon River would correspond with the Karun River in Iran, and the Pishon River would match the Wadi Batin river system that had drained the now dry, but once quite fertile central part of the Arabian Peninsula. His suggestion about the Pishon River is supported by James A. Sauer (1945–1999) formerly of the American Center of Oriental Research although strongly criticized by the archaeological community(x).
A number of commentators have suggested that the site of Eden is now under water, where lower sea levels during the Ice Age would have revealed land now submerged, such as in the Persian Gulf. The Red Sea has also been proposed.
Kircher’s Garden of Eden
The conventional idea has been enhanced in the opinion of some by the discoveries of the German archaeologist, Klaus Schmidt, who believed that his excavations at Göbekli Tepe in Turkey have unearthed artefacts dating to 8000 BC when the people there changed from hunting and gathering to agriculture. This region also contains Ur and Harran, mentioned in the Old Testament and since Göblekli Tepe is located between the Tigris and Euphrates and is within view of the Taurus Mountains, it conforms remarkably to the topographical description of Eden in the Bible. Tom Knox speculated on this in an article in the UK’s Daily Mail Online(aa).
It was no great surprise when I found at that least one commentator has proposed Göbekli Tepe and the surrounding area was the site of the Garden of Eden(au).
Garold Spire jr, an American researcher, offers a strong case for placing Eden in southern Turkey at the Karaca Dag shield-volcano. He studied the sacred books of the Abrahamic religions and drew up a short list of characteristics that the Garden must have;
1) It must have been warm enough to be comfortable without protective clothing. Gen 2:25.
2) It must be uphill geographically, due to the fact that four rivers exited
from it, these are the Euphrates, the Tigris, the Pishon, and the Gihon. Gen 2:10-14
3) The Pishon must compass or border Havila where there is gold and onyx. Gen 2:11, 12.
4)The Gihon must compass or border the whole land of Cush. Gen 2:13
5) It must account for a flaming sword on its east side. Gen 3:24
6) It must be well watered, Gen 13:10 by a mist (in Hebrew) not rain, Gen 2:5-6, which came up from the earth.
Spire maintains that his Turkish location has all these features(an).
Christopher Columbus believed that the source of the Orinoco River, in what is now known as Venezuela had been the location of Eden. Antonio de León Pinelo (1590-1660) was a Spanish chronicler who spent some years in South America and was also convinced that the Garden of Eden had been situated between the great rivers of South America(k)!
The imaginative Augustus Le Plongeon claimed the Yucatan as the location of the ‘Garden’(s) an idea endorsed by his wife, Alice Dixon Le Plongeon.
In more recent times, Ramiro Gonzales Yaksic (1966- ), the author of Earthly Paradise: The Garden of the Andes [1055] in which he claims to have identified the biblical Garden of Eden in his native Bolivia(ar). Dieter Groban has written in support of Yaksic(as).
James Bailey published Sailing to Paradise [0150] in 1994, some years before Yaksic’s book, in which he added further support for his Atlantis in America contention. Additionally, he placed the Garden of Eden somewhere on the Bolivian Altiplano.
[0150] in 1994, some years before Yaksic’s book, in which he added further support for his Atlantis in America contention. Additionally, he placed the Garden of Eden somewhere on the Bolivian Altiplano.
General Gordon of Khartoum fame was so impressed by the island of Preslin in the Seychelles that he declared it to be the Garden of Eden and its famed Coco de Mer and breadfruit plants to be the Tree of Life and the Tree of Good and Evil. Science writer, Karl Shuker, has written an extensive article, Forbidden Fruit, for the January 2016 edition of Fortean Times, in which he gives the background to Gordon’s obsession and his inability to garner any serious support for it.
At the beginning of the 20th century, it was reported(r) that G. F. Becker (1847-1919) a geologist with the USGS nominated Luzon in the Philippines as the site of the biblical ‘Garden’, while Sven Hedin (1865-1952) a much-decorated Swedish geographer chose Janaidar a mythical city in Central Asia.
George H. Cooper, the American writer, identified Salisbury Plain [0236.111] as the Garden of Eden along with its Wiltshire river system matching the Euphrates and Tigris in the Genesis story. W. Comyns Beaumont chose Britain’s Glastonbury as the site of the original Garden.
In the middle of the last century, a Baptist preacher, Elvy E. Callaway, announced that the Garden had been located in the vicinity of Bristol, Florida(j).
David Rohl has studied the matter in great detail [230] and located the ‘Garden’ in the northern Iranian province of East Azerbaijan near the city of Tabriz(ad)(aj). Rohl’s reasoning is worthy of study and perhaps a comparison with the views of Emilio Spedicato, who offers his explanation for placing Eden in Pakistan’s Hunza Valley in two papers on the Internet(b)(y). Rohl was partly inspired by the work of Reginald A. Walker [1388/9].
The inventive David Hatcher Childress published an article in issue 31 of the Atlantis Rising magazine with the title of Central Asia’s Ancient Heart and a subtitle that asks the question ‘Could Afghanistan Once Have Been the Garden of Eden?’ He then proceeds to offer a couple of pages about ancient Mongolia, with little reference to either Afghanistan or the Garden of Eden!
Andrew Collins claims [073] that the original Mesopotamian name for Eden was Kharsag, a view echoed by the late Christian O’Brien(q). O’Brien’s nephew, Edmund Marriage, identifies the Bekka Valley in Lebanon as the location of Eden of Genesis. A new Lebanese location site is the subject of a website and forum(h)(i). An excerpt from O’Brien’s book, relating to Eden, can be read online(v).
Ari Zuker bravely suggests that the land of Israel was the Garden of Eden(ao). John Appelt, an American pastor also supports this idea (at).
The Sabbah brothers, Roger and Messod, controversially place Eden in Egypt [310] and offer a range of evidence to support this contention. Ralph Ellis has also opted for Egypt in his book, Eden in Egypt[0951] and claims that Adam and Eve were in reality, Akhenaton and Nefertiti! Ellis also supports his theory with two online papers providing excerpts from his books(o)(p).
A Christian website, logoschristian.org, used to also claim that Eden had been located in the eastern Nile Delta, specifically named Al Mansura. In 1933, John G. Jackson wrote a paper advocating an African origin for the legend of the Garden of Eden. Jackson’s extreme Afrocentric views may have coloured his view of this subject!
Further to the west is the Tunisian town of Oudna, which has been nominated as Eden by one Patrick Archer on his somewhat sparse website(d).
Gerald Wells also identified some of his Algerian Atlantis territories as having included the biblical Garden of Eden(aq).
Another African location was put forward by Georg Hinzpeter over half a century ago when he suggested that the Ethiopian plateau had been the home of Adam & Eve before their eviction(z).
Stephen E. Franklin has also opted for an African location for the Garden of Eden, placing it south of the Ahaggar Mountains near the Wadi Tafanasset in southern Algeria.(ah) He also claims that Mt. Tahat, the highest peak in the Ahaggars, was, according to Franklin, the original Atlas mountain referred to by Herodotus as the home of the Atlantes (sometimes Atarantes(ai)). Sprague De Camp noted [194.191] that Paul Borchardt also identified the ancient Mt. Atlas with the Ahaggar Mountains rather than the Atlas Mountains of the Maghreb! I should add that this identification of Mt. Atlas remains moot.
In 2014, Stan Deyo chose Tanzania as the location of the Garden of Eden(h). Paulo Riven has also supported the region as the site of the ‘Garden’(ak). This idea has been echoed elsewhere and more recently on a website dealing with the history of Israel(f) and on a Christian website where the Ngorongoro Crater is specified(g).
Carl Seaver has also offered an African location for the Garden. In a 2022 article, he reports that according to recent research, Botswana is the most likely location of the Garden and where humans originated. Eden sat in the Kalahari Desert, which used to be a wetland where the early humans lived. During this time, Lake Makgadikgadi stretched from Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe(am).
In 2023 an African location for the Garden was again proposed by journalist, Tom Hale, who wrote(al) “The so-called Cradle of Humankind can be found in South Africa around 50 kilometers (31 miles) northwest of Johannesburg. This site is home to the largest concentration of human ancestral remains anywhere in the world. Among the thousands of fossils found here, researchers have unearthed the remains of Australopithecus, an early ape-like human species dated to around 3.4 to 3.7 million years old.
It wasn’t until 200,000 to 300,000 years ago that modern Homo sapiens evolved. Once again, Africa was the location of this development, with modern humans most likely first emerging somewhere around modern-day Ethiopia.
So, if we’re looking for a scientific Garden of Eden, it looks like South Africa and Ethiopia are our best bet. Whether these sites were once home to a paradise where four rivers once met remains to be seen, however.”
What may appear just as implausible to many is the claim by Felice Vinci[019], that the Eden story was imported from northern Europe, specifically from Finnish Lapland(af). At the end of the 19th century, William Fairfield Warren placed the Garden in the Arctic [0078].
Even more incredible is the assertion by the likes of William C. Chappell that the Garden of Eden was situated in the United States. His Mormon-inspired views are available as a free eBook(c) on the Internet. Interestingly, Jackson County, Missouri was the location of Eden revealed by Joseph Smith(ac). the founder of Mormonism and well-known collector of wives.
A more ‘commercial’ suggestion has come from Dennis Brooks who suggested that Tarpon Springs, Florida, was originally the location of the Garden of Eden and that Tampa Bay contained the port of Atlantis.
The Urantia Book promotes the idea of two Edens, one near Cyprus and a second further east! In 2003, Robert Sarmast compiled a list of similarities between Plato’s account of Atlantis and the description of the Garden of Eden in the Urantia Book(l).
In his 2004 book Finding Atlantis he claimed one of the Edens, noted in The Urantia Book, along with Atlantis had been situated near Cyprus, now in waters a mile deep! Two expeditions were organised to verify his claims, but nothing conclusive was found. Although very little has been heard from Sarmast in recent years, in 2018, Robert S. Bates attempted to breathe new life into Sarmast’s ideas that the Mediterranean region around Cyprus had been home to both Atlantis and the Garden of Eden(ae).
Stephen Oppenheimer has pointed out[004] that Genesis 2:8 reads that “the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden”. He argues (p.409) that this supports the idea of a ‘paradise’ in the Sundaland region. However, Oppenheimer does not equate Eden with Atlantis.
As Monty Python used to say “now for something completely different” – The North Pole. This suggestion has come from Gene Matlock who advocated that ‘Eden was the North Pole’ in a paper of the same name(ab).
The Garden of Eden has been suggested by some as another name for Atlantis, representing as it does a mythical time of peace and abundance. However, Eden is never spoken of in terms of military might and commercial success attributed to Atlantis. One of the better-known proponents of this idea of an Atlantean Eden was the late Professor Arysio dos Santos(a) who was convinced that it was located in the South China Sea before the ending of the last Ice Age submerged large areas of Sundaland. Confusingly, he referred to Eden as ‘Lemurian Atlantis’, but added that “This Lemurian Atlantis of ours should not be confused with the purely fanciful counterparts of the Theosophists and other such followers of Mme. Blavatsky. Their ‘Lemuria’ is a hypothetical sunken continent of the mid-Pacific region, one which never existed at all.
Shortly before his death in 2005, Santos published [320] his theories, expanding on material that he had made available on the Internet for some years. Frank Joseph also claims [106][107] that the Garden of Eden was located on the lost island of ‘Lemuria’ located in the Pacific.
Bill Hanson, who has authored a number of books on ancient ‘mysteries’, has recently written a work [352] that links the Garden of Eden with Atlantis. He identifies five similarities between the two accounts:
- Both prehistoric locations are regarded as ‘lost paradises’
- The four rivers of Eden are reflected in the four waterways of Poseidon the island capital of Atlantis.
- Atlantis started with ten kings and the Bible speaks of ten patriarchs.
- Zeus destroyed Atlantis because mortals and gods mated, whereas the Bible records the mating of the ‘sons of God’ and human females.
- Atlantis was flooded just as the Age of the Patriarchs ended with the flood of Noah.
The late Joseph Robert Jochmans identified(g) Atlantis with Eden in a comprehensive article on his website. John Nichols also wrote a long article(e) identifying Atlantis with the Garden of Eden and placing it on the Celtic Shelf about a hundred miles off the coast of France due west of Brest.
Frederick Dodson in a hefty 523-page book [989] claims an Atlantis-Garden of Eden connection(n). In 2018, the Catalan researcher, José Luis Espejo also equated Atlantis with the Garden of Eden[1607].
In 2022, a writer, hiding behind the nom de plume of ‘gserpent’, produced a lengthy article blending Atlantis, Eden and Lemuria into one heap of literary manure(ag).
Currently. the sadly benighted Iraq is trying to lure tourists to spend their holidays in ‘the Garden of Eden’(m)!
(a) http://www.lost-civilizations.net/atlantis-corroborating-evidence-page-12.html
(b) kharsag (grazian-archive.com)
(c) http://losttruthfound.com/gardenofedenfound.pdf
(d) https://patrickofatlantis.com/
(e) https://jjswn35.wordpress.com/article/atlantis-eden-how-to-find-2vfxjftuay98o-9/
(f) The Garden of Eden – Tribes of Atlantis (archive.org) *
(g) See: Archive 3602
(h) The Garden of Eden – Found in Rashaya El-Wadi – the-lebanon.com (archive.org) or Archive 3182
(j) Weird Florida (archive.org)
(k) See: Archive 2999
(l) See: Archive 3603
(o) https://www.ancient-origins.net/opinion-guest-authors/eden-egypt-part-1-001827
(p) https://www.ancient-origins.net/opinion-guest-authors/eden-egypt-part-2-001831
(q) https://www.goldenageproject.org.uk/obrienvsitchin.php
(t) https://nabataea.net/djgibson.html
(u) https://web.archive.org/web/20190916073848/https://theancientneareast.com/the-four-rivers-of-eden/
(w) https://www.ldolphin.org/eden/
(x) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juris_Zarins
(z) Atlantis, Vol.17, No. 2/3, April 1964, p.27
(ab) http://www.viewzone.com/edenpole.html
(ac) https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Joseph_Smith/Prophet/Garden_of_Eden_in_Missouri
(ad) http://www.british-israel.ca/Eden.htm
(ae) EAP-Essay-FINAL.pdf (evolving-souls.org)
(ag) Atlantis: The Garden of Eden – secretsoftheserpent (archive.org)
(ah) https://neros.lordbalto.com/ChapterEight.htm
(ai) W. W. How, J. Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus, BOOK IV, chapter 184 (tufts.edu)
(aj) https://davidrohl.blogspot.com/2012/02/
(ak) https://sites.google.com/site/tribesofatlantis/Home/the-garden-of-eden
(al) https://www.iflscience.com/where-is-the-garden-of-eden-and-where-would-it-be-located-today-66925
(am) https://www.historydefined.net/where-would-the-garden-of-eden-be-today/
(an) (99+) The Garden of Eden-allegory or archaeology | Gari Spire – Academia.edu
(ao) (99+) THE GARDEN OF EDEN IN GALILEE | Ari Zuker – Academia.edu
(ap) (99+) Garden of Eden – Paradise | Eshbal Ratson – Academia.edu
(ar) Archive 2331
(as) https://www.facebook.com/Groben.Turismo/posts/926029544094509
(at) https://ebible.com/questions/790-what-is-the-location-of-the-garden-of-eden (third item)
(au) The Garden of Eden Discovered?Spiritual Core Theory
(av) https://www.ldolphin.org/eden/index.html
Herodotus *
Herodotus (c.484 – c.420 BC) was born in Halicarnassus, today known as Bodrum, a popular tourist resort in Turkey. He wrote the first comprehensive history of the ancient world. His work has been lauded and denounced in equal measure, earning the twin appellations of ‘Father of History’ and ‘Father of Lies’. The latter is the consequence of some of his accounts appearing incredible at first reading, but a little 
investigation and lateral thinking can reveal the underlying truth of his statements as demonstrated by Reginald Fessenden among others. Herodotus also described an unusual Egyptian barge, known as a ‘baris’, which was not confirmed until the 21st century(e).
A recent article(d) on the Ancient Origins website defends Herodotus’ reputation.
Another example is to be found in Book IV of The Histories[1239] where he mentions the Atlantes as being vegetarians and never dreaming (v.184). This apparently strange comment may be explained by the fact that vegetarians are frequently short of vitamin B6, which is recognised today as leading to the suppression of dreams. This is reminiscent of a reference in the Mahabharata to Atala, sometimes proposed as a reference to Atlantis, where it notes that it is inhabited by “white men who never have to sleep or eat” (Santi Parva, Section CCCXXXVII).
Writing nearly a century before Plato, Herodotus refers to Atlantes as a people occupying the interior of what was then known as Libya (Hist.4.184.1) and since the Atlanteans controlled the Mediterranean as far as Egypt (Timaeus 25b) Herodotus may have been alluding to them. In Book I, 202, Herodotus refers to the sea beyond the Pillars of Heracles as the ‘Sea of Atlantis’. The pre-platonic date of these comments dispels the notion that Atlantis was an invention of Plato. This same text refers to the fact that all the known seas are connected; (i) ‘the sea known to the Greeks’, namely the Aegean or eastern Mediterranean, (ii) ‘the sea beyond the Pillars of Heracles’ in the western Mediterranean and (iii) the ‘Erythraean’ or the Red Sea. This interpretation of the text implies that the Pillars of Heracles were located somewhere in the region of Malta, a view supported by some recent writers such as Anton Mifsud.
Herodotus, who flourished after Solon and before Plato, was quite clear that there were only three continents known to the Greeks, Europe, Asia and Libya [4.42]. This provides a powerful argument against the claim that America was known to the Greeks or that Plato’s ‘opposite continent’ could have been a 
reference to America. Furthermore, Anaximander drew a ‘map’ of the known world in the 6th century BC showing three continents without any suggestion of territory beyond them.
In spite of the above references that are apparently supportive of the existence of Atlantis, it has been reasonably argued, by Alan Alford, that they are counterbalanced by the fact that Herodotus considered the wars between the Persians and the Greeks as the greatest of all time, that he considered Sardinia the largest in the world and that the Minoans had developed the first sea empire in the Mediterranean, all attributes of Plato’s Atlantis. In response, I must argue that the war with Atlantis could have been the greatest up to that point in time but subsequently eclipsed by the scale of the war with the Persians. Similarly, the First World War was the most extensive until World War II. With regard to the Minoans, it must be pointed out that the Phoenicians had a more extensive trading empire encompassing both the eastern and western Mediterranean, whereas the Minoans were mainly active in the eastern basin.
Finally, Herodotus was wrong regarding Sardinia, as Sicily is in fact the largest island in the Mediterranean in terms of area (25,708 km2 vs. 24,090 km2). However, the coastal length of Sardinia is much greater than Sicily’s (1843 vs 1115 km). Interestingly, Felice Vinci recently wrote[019] that ancient seafarers measured territory by its coastal perimeter rather than by its area, as we do today. In fact he relates how this method was in use up to the time of Columbus. So in the end Herodotus was quite correct according to the criteria of his age. Once again we see the dangers inherent in trying to understand writings from another age and culture.
This method of measuring territory by the length of its coastal boundaries must be taken into account when considering Plato’s description of Atlantis being greater than Asia and Libya together.
Pierre Vidal-Naquet has pointed out[580.23] how Jean-François Pradeau after studying the language of Critias demonstrated[385] that ‘this dialogue employs certain terms that do not appear elsewhere in Plato’s works, terms that are borrowed from Herodotus’.
A modern review of Herodotus’ Histories was written by Daniel Mendelsohn in The New Yorker in April 2008(f).
Thorwald C.Franke delivered a paper to the 2008 Atlantis Conference with the self-explanatory title of The Importance of Herodotus’ Histories for the Atlantis Problem. This interesting document is now available online(c). Franke believes that Herodotus has more to offer Atlantology than is generally thought. He mentions the work of J.V.Luce having made a positive use of Herodotus’ Histories as a contribution to the Atlantis debates.
The full text of Herodotus’ writings is available online(b).
(b) The Internet Classics Archive | The History of Herodotus by Herodotus *
(c) https://www.atlantis-scout.de/Franke_Herodotus_Atlantis2008_Proceedings.pdf
(f) https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/04/28/arms-and-the-man-3