One of the great men mentioned here, 17th c. scholar Athanasius Kircher, had to describe his own work on astronomy as fiction, to avoid the sort of trouble Galilio had encountered.
Kircher, incidentally, gave us one of the earliest descriptions of a functional camera. The man's contributions went well beyond Egyptology. Here's an interesting page:
http://www.strangescience.net/kircher.htm
Most interesting! Thanks for the link.