Hello, I just read your article and joined to comment, I am an avid Atlantis 'nut' who spends nearly every waking hour disecting Plato's work to make sense of it all and I have done so for years now, I am very informed on all aspects of Atlantis and have my own theories evolving as time goes on.
I will point out I do not think Plato nor Solon were talking about America as Atlantis even though I found your article very convincing had I not done a tonne of research myself.
I believe Atlantis does not exist physically at all, believe me, I thought it did for ages but now don't... and did not sink but he is talking about a collective notion of a previous civilization that can be found over and over that 'sinks' as such as we lose any knowledge of it, allegory of the traveller not being able to get there anymore...he introduces Critias as such...like a weary traveller....Troy is ideal example and is probably one connotation of his Atlantis. I do believe however that he has placed it in context of being an island in the Atlantic such as the Greeks saw the island that Hera came from in the West. If you read Book 3 of The Laws you can see the same ideas he brings forth in the Atlantis story placed into a real context, almost like a proto-type of his idea.
OK, but anyways, consider this, true fact...Columbus read some work by Aristotle who had claimed that if you sailed West it would bring you back around to the East..as it does and Columbus, spurred on by this thought did exactly as Aristotle said and also was convinced he had reached The East Indies as we all know...Aristotle also tells us Plato created Atlantis just to sink it and was not a believer of it, now if anyone would know, I reckon it was Aristotle, since he was the closest student to Plato we know of...
the consideration is this...they both knew the world was round, it was put forth by this time but shot down in flames but Plato was no dummy, of course he knew the world was round, he was too astronomically educated not too...
So, consider a round Earth with the known continental area as one...to get to the other side (the opposite side) you would go out West....thru the Pillars, the island Hera came from is there according the the Greeks, which I see as Atlantis, Herodotus in 450BC which is a read you have to read if you have not...he calls the Atlantic Ocean, the Atlantis Sea, so you travel West still past 'Atlantis' in the Atlantis Sea, keep sailing and where would you end up if you did not know the Americas were there...the opposite side of the Continent of course....just as Columbus thought he had done....the boundless continent. Well, that's my views after endless readings and decipherment of it all, you may find it interesting....
PS: All ancients believed in Troy, none doubted it at all, it was part of their true history....only modern interpretations changed that..somewhere along the way we disbelieved it but no ancient did, probably because like Plato tells us we all just forgot about it and the knowledge of it was lost through time, it was always there to them.
PPS: Aristotle was Alexander The Great's teacher and what Alexander did is the exact message that the story conveys. At a time when Greek was very weak and just managed to save themselves from the Persians, he rose and saved Greece from becoming another 'Atlantis'.
and lastly...The earthquake that hit Helike in Plato's time, a Poseidon city imo was the inspiration for Plato...Crete was the inspiration for the description and that he knew about it's early existance from the Egyptians who had regular trade with Mycenaean Crete before it's downfall circa 1200BC.
