June 7th 2011 - Mr. Clampett: Gorr'Rylaehotep

It's been quite some time since I've updated this blog. Sometimes I wonder if it's even worth updating. No one follows it. I might as well just write this down in an actual journal with the amount of people reading it haha. And to be honest between work and all the things that have been going on in my life, I was losing interest in this story. I may have never even updated it if it wasn't for the fact that I ran into my Ancient Civilizations teacher, Mr. Clampett, at work the other day.

Since school let out for the semester, I hadn't seen any of my teachers at all in fact. That was until Mr. Clampett walked into the Best Buy I work at. I was on register and I saw him. He was in fact my favorite teacher last semester and it was nice to see him. I was going on break just a few minutes after he walked in, so while I was going out to lunch I happened to see him shopping. I stopped and decided to have a chat with him, just to catch up. It wasn't until several minutes into the conversation that I thought to ask about Heinrich Kaufmann. He is quite knowledgeable not only on ancient civilizations but of the famous explorers and adventurers who brought the world knowledge of them. When I asked about Heinrich Kaufmann, he was very shocked to say the least.

He wondered why I wanted to know and I told him that I was just curious. Which is the honest truth. He seemed a tad suspicious but reluctantly told me anyway. He explained that Kaufmann was an eccentric individual and beyond that very little knowledge is available about him today. He was never all that famous and so little information was known about him to begin with, but strangely enough during the early 1990s all information about him in textbooks was removed for an uncited reason. The only biography on him ran out of publication even earlier, in the 1970s. He's become one of the most mysterious archaeologists simply due to the severe lack of information on him. Mr. Clampett was surprised when I told him I was able to find some information on him in a textbook and even a newspaper article online. When I told him the textbook most likely predated the 90s, it seemed to make more sense to him.

Lucky for me, Mr. Clampett is an older man and he's been teaching for decades. He knew quite a bit about Heinrich Kaufmann, accruing all his knowledge on him before the information was mysteriously wiped. He confirmed my suspicion that Heinrich Kaufmann Jr. was the son of the German industrialist and financier of the same name. He then proceeded to tell me a lot of information I already knew.

However, he eventually got to a part that really intrigued me. He knew quite a bit about the expedition Kaufmann made to Egypt. All information on Kaufmann's Egyptian Expedition is taken from his personal journal that he kept on his person at all times while on the trip. He wrote about the day to day activities of him and his team, made up mostly of local Egyptians. What I believe to be the most notable event in the expedition was when Kaufmann supposedly discovered the ancient tablet he was searching for, the Egyptians all started chanting:

"Gorr'Rylaehotep! Gorr'Rylaehotep! Gorr'Rylaehotep!"

Kaufmann asked his translator what this meant. The translator told him that "Gorr'Rylaehotep" was the name of a god that the locals claim came from another world and cursed the tablet. They warned Kaufmann not to take the tablet, but he was determined.

Mr. Clampett also explained what I already knew about Kaufmann's disgrace among the academic community and his retreat to New York.

This new information has renewed my interest in the story. I plan on continuing my research and updating my blog as I find out more.

If you have any new information to send me, e-mail me at dshipman90@gmail.com

- Daniel