Since 2009, the Belgian Archaeological Mission to Elkab of the Royal Museums of Art and History is excavating the remains of a large settlement that has its origin in the Badarian period. This settlement is located within the Late Period Great Walls, immediately west of the temples, in an area which is bordered to the north by the late Old Kingdom Double Walls. Descriptions and drawings by early travellers indicate that a large tell once existed in this area. Like at many other sites in Egypt, intensive sebakh digging almost completely destroyed this tell in the course of the 19th century. As a consequence, archaeologists working at Elkab have always supposed that virtually nothing was left of the original habitation of the site. However, the location and extent of this tell can be reconstructed by analysing these primarily 19th century documents. In this contribution, we present an overview of the available sources with regard to the location of the “lost tell” of Elkab that proved to be of great importance for our current work in the Elkab settlement.