The Gebel el-Arak knife was bought for the Louvre by the philologist and Egyptologist Georges Aaron Bénédite in February 1914 from a private antique dealer, M. Nahman, in Cairo [REF].
At the time of its purchase by G. Bénédite, the knife handle was said by the antique dealer to have been found at the site of Gebel el-Arak (جبل العركى), a plateau near the village of Nag Hammadi, 40km south of Abydos.