This is not to say that many valid ideas have not been put forth by lay Egyptologists. Mixed among the wild theories sometimes come well thought out hypothesis from those who have clearly made a study of formal Egyptology. Sometimes their ideas have even been adopted by the scholarly community. The real difference is that they usually have a broad understanding of ancient Egypt, usually after years of informal study, of Egyptology.
For example, some Egyptologists probably think that the ancient Egyptians may have sailed farther abroad than originally supposed, perhaps leaving traces of their ancient civilization in places more far a field. There is not a lot of evidence to support such theories, but it is not impossible given what we now know. Ancient sailors, even Egyptians, could have become lost and there is also immerging evidence that ancient mariners may not have stuck as closely to shore as we originally thought. However, even this theory must be looked upon with some common sense. It is very doubtful, for example, that they had anything to do, for example, with the pyramids of South America.
At other times, those proposing some of the wilder theories have demonstrated the lack of even a very basic knowledge of ancient Egypt, its monuments, religion and culture. In future subsections of this article, we will explore some of the more valid propositions, and perhaps even some of the less valid theories, but some do not even warrant acknowledgement.
Take, for example some recent email I have been receiving about the pyramids of Giza. These claim that the Great Pyramids at Giza were never tombs at all, but were instead some sort of "scientific endeavor". I would not usually grace the source of such a theory by publishing the website address, but this one time I will do so in order to point out some of the problems they pose particularly to those interested, but relatively uninformed about ancient Egypt.
The website in question proclaim itself to be the Open Cheops Committee, and by the second paragraph of their home page they are claiming that Zahi Hawass acknowledged their premise publicly, but later reversed his position. Knowing Dr. Hawass, and his rather constant flow of books on the pyramids that never question the pyramids as tombs, this is a little difficult to believe (In fact, there are a series of small, step pyramids spread along the Nile that Egyptologists do not believe to be tombs, but that is not very relevant for this discussion
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