It's the links between the authors that I find very interesting and their reactions to each other. Their religious beliefs are beyond me and the way that they could combine facts with pure fantasy is sometimes also beyond comprehension. Rutherford's explanation of why the Great Pyramid entrance is offset from the centre is a piece of twisted logic that's straight out of Alice in Wonderland but it appears in the same volumes as remarks following his conversations with Marragioglio & Rinaldi that report interesting findings that haven't appeared anywhere else.

Many of these writers produced real research that is still important today but it's frequently hidden by all the mumbo jumbo. Rutherford, Morton and Smyth are all worth reading. I'm not sure Davidson is though other than as a curiosity. He never actually visited Egypt and his book is really only worth looking at for the drawings which I love but frequently don't understand at all.

The "Pyramidologists" split into two camps with what Morton Edgar called the "British Israelites" on one side and those who didn't agree on the other. Smyth belonged to the former group who claimed the British as one of the lost tribes of Israel. I'm not sure if you could accuse him of racism but he seemed to have an odd idea about the difference between "Jews" and "Israelites" which I think might be anti-Semitic. But I'm hesitant to accuse him as times and attitudes have changed and his reasoning is not easy to follow now.

I have a two volume work on Egypt by the 19th century German author Ebbers which contains some very unpleasant racist remarks which I wouldn't even quote they are so nasty. They do go beyond what I could excuse as the result of changing attitudes.

Jon