Description and research notes
Early 1908 invoice from Mohammed El Komi’s carriage and automobile workshop in Cairo, located near the palace of Mazloum Pasha. The illustrated header shows a finely printed horse-drawn carriage, reflecting the transitional era when carriage builders were adapting their workshops to service imported automobiles. The bilingual French–Arabic description lists painting, upholstery, repair, and bespoke manufacturing services.
The invoice is fully handwritten in Arabic with a sharply struck circular workshop seal and itemized service entries. It is one of the earliest known Egyptian documents explicitly combining carriage repair with emerging automobile work, marking the moment when traditional coachmaking merged with new mechanical technologies.
Documents from hybrid carriage-automobile workshops before 1910 are extremely scarce, as most small Cairo workshops did not maintain printed stationery and few invoices survived daily wear. This example is a standout artifact of Egypt’s early automotive adoption and the evolution of local craftsmanship at the dawn of the motor age.