Pepi I Formed First Regular Army in Pharaonic Egypt

King Pepi I was one of the Pharaohs of the 6th Dynasty of Old Kingdom Egypt.

He ruled near the end of the Old Kingdom. He pursued an expansionist policy in Nubia, south Egypt, and worked to secure trade routes to some countries far from Egypt such as Lebanon and Somalia.

During his reign, he was keen to form the first regular army in Egypt.

Weni the Elder was among the most famous high officials in the time of Pepi I. He was the owner of the tomb in Abydos in Sohag.

His biography was one of the most important biographies from the Old Kingdom. It was inscribed on one of the walls of his tomb which was moved later to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

Dr. Hussein Bassir, an Egyptologist, said that during the reign of this king, the Egyptian Delta was subjected to numerous raids from the Bedouins on the northeastern borders of Egypt. Those nomads were called by the Egyptian texts "Amo Herio Shaa," which mean "Asians on the sand."

In order to repel their attacks that the few military garrisons in these areas did not succeed in dealing with them, Pepi I commissioned Weni the Elder to lead military campaigns in the Levant. So the first Egyptian regular army was formed. The army was consisted of many thousands of Egyptian recruits from southern and northern parts of Egypt.

It also comprised large numbers of Nubians and Libyans loyal to Egypt were drafted to the army.

Dr. Bassir made it clear that Weni the Elder succeeded in leading this Egyptian valiant army to eliminate the Bedouin attacks.

He prided, in the text of his magnificent autobiography, that he was appointed by His Majesty King Pepi I to lead this army consisting of thousands of brave soldiers, the best of the land’s soldiers, who were recruited from Upper Egypt and the Delta.

The Bedouins were defeated with great success.

However, the most important thing in the text of Weni's autobiography was that he and his soldiers acted according to the standards of ancient Egyptian morals, and none of his soldiers did not pick quarrel with each other.