Of pyramids and Shakespeare

I was watching an interesting bit on BBC News earlier on, about a new exhibit at the British Museum . It's a 3D representation of a complete Egyptian mummy that underwent a CAT scan, so the archaeologists didn't have to undo the thing to peek inside. I have an abiding fascination with old things, so it'll be an exhibit I'll see next time I'm in the Smoke. One 'curious feature' discovered was a strange serpentine figure on the skull. As the newsreader chirpily put it, 'Stargate fans, take note!'
Another thing I love is science fiction, so you can imagine that I love Stargate. It is total rubbish, but it makes perfect sunday afternoon viewing, post lunch: Being slightly pissed on a decent bottle of red wine, whilst watching some guys running around pyramids. With spaceships and explosions. Bliss. (And you get Time Team afterwards as well). OK, OK, it is rather sad, butb there you go. We all need something to do on a sunday afternoon...
As I said, Stargate is enjoyable, but absolute tosh. The pyramids were not built with alien technology, the Egyptians did not have access to strange devices, forgotten Ancient Knowledge, or stargates. They did have access to rock, mud, primitive cranes, a decent knowledge of geometric principles and architecture, slaves and whips. That was enough to build the pyramids. But of course, many people don't want to believe that. And why?
For the same reason that some people don't want to believe that Shakespeare wrote his plays. Last week saw the 400th anniversary of the death of Edward de Vere, a nob who some say was the real author of such plays as Hamlet, King Lear, and Henry V. Oh, and The Tempest, which was written after 1604. Hmmm...Likewise, some say that Francis Bacon wrote them, or Ben Jonson. Anyone but Shakespeare.
And why?
Because it isn't romantic enough. According to these people, the Egyptians can't have built the pyramids because they're, well, the pyramids. Shakespeare can't have written the plays because they're, um, his plays. That someone can create something staggering, an artifice or a piece of literature in a way that has never been done before, seems incredulous to such people, and people who don't want to credit the evidence of their own eyes tend to be credulous, and grasp at any passing straw instead. So, in their opinion, the pyramids must have had alien intervention because of their size and alignment to certain stars. The plays must have been written by a nobleman, because lords and such were erudite and well-travelled, unlike lowly Stratford schoolmasters.
What they forget are two things: First, that even the most ordinary of us, by putting our minds to what we really want, are capable of achieving the apparently miraculous; and second, that others have what they have in abundance, namely an imagination.