I am so envious of you. I wanted to study Egyptology; I used to sleep one block from Tahir Square in Cairo, near the museum.
I didn’t know anything about Hawass.
Check out anchorstone.com and tell me what you think. Was King Tut the crown prince of the pharoah that died during the Red Sea crossing? Interesting data.
I actually got into it as a fluke. I started taking some courses in Hieroglyphs (to prove Mormonism was true of all things) and then got really interested. When I was doing my MA in Ancient History I focused on Roman Egypt and a professor of mine recommended doing an informal joint program with UCLA and gave me the recommendation. I loved it but UCLA was having problems in the department so several courses were cut and some of the older professors were retiring and not being replaced. In many ways it was frustrating.
Regarding the site, I have seen similar things, but the evidence for their claims just isn’t there. The hardest thing about Egyptology is it is always changing, new finds are so common that I joke by the time you finish reading a book, half of it is out of date. As for Tut, it has been a long standing view that he (or Akhenaten)is the pharaoh of Exodus, mostly because they were monotheists (or as close as Egyptians got), but the biggest problem I have with it, is it really requires a major modification of timelines and dynasties. “Pharaohs and Kings” by Rhol, IIRC covers this in depth.
For me, as a Christian, it doesn’t matter. The purpose of Biblical archeology isn’t to prove the Garden of Eden, the Exodus or Noah’s ark. It is to establish a material culture and what we have discovered matches the Biblical account. Things like the David Stele are just gravy, but to focus on trying to prove dates/locations and artifacts for things in Genesis/Exodus is contrary to purpose of Biblical Archeology and leads to a misreading of sources and artifacts. For example, they are using a chariot as proof of the location crossing, not considering that there could be other possibilities for how it got there (fell off a ship, drought, pulled out because of a wave created by an earthquake) they are reading something into a discovery (a very cool one) that may not be there.
The other thing that bothers me is companies making money off of the faith of others. IMO, Biblical Archeology Review (even though I disagree with some of their analysis) takes a balanced stance for the layman and I still keep a subscription to keep up on current topics, knowing that I can go more in depth if I choose to (KMT magazine for Egyptology).
I hope this answers your question and feel free to freepmail me if you are interested in some more resources.