into his brief last regnal year. More precisely, the Egyptologist Steve Vinson proposed that he reigned between 1156 BC and 1149 BC, while the Encyclopædia Britannica reports 1145–1137 BC, Jürgen von Beckerath gives 1142–1134 BC, Erik Hornung 1145–1139 BC, Nicolas Grimal 1144–1136 BC making him a contemporary of Nebuchadrezzar I of Isin, Ian Shaw, Jacobus van Dijk and Michael Rice 1143–1136 BC, and 1132–1125 BC in a 2017 study. In 1977, the Egyptologists Wente and Charles van Siclen were the first to propose, upon reviewing the chronology of the New Kingdom period, that Ramesses VI lived into his eighth year of reign. This hypothesis was vindicated the next year by the Egyptologist Jac Janssen, who published an analysis of an ostracon which mentions the loan of an ox in the seventh and eighth years of an unnamed king who can only have been Ramesses VI. Two years later, Lanny Bell reported further evidence that Ramesses VI not only reigned into his eighth regnal year but most likely completed it and lived into his ninth. Ramesses VI's eighth year on the throne may also be mentioned in Theban graffito 1860a, which names the then serving High Priest of Amun, Ramessesnakht. This graffito has also been ascribed to Ramesses X, but this interpretation has been contested and its ascription to Ramesses VI has been proposed as an alternative. The subject remains debated. An important piece of evidence first recognised by Jansen in 1978 but fully exploited only five years later by the Egyptologist Raphael Ventura is found on the Turin Papyrus 1907+1908, which covers the time period from Ramesses VI's fifth year until Ramesses VII's seventh year on the throne. The reconstruction of the document proposed by Ventura shows that the simplest solution available to explain the chronology of the period covered by the papyrus is that Ramesses VI enjoyed a reign of eight full years, died in his ninth, and was succeeded by Ramesses VII rather than Ramesses VIII, as had been debated until then. Activities and situation in Egypt Early reign: strife in the Theban region Immediately after his accession to the throne, Ramesses VI and his court may have visited Thebes on the occasion of the Beautiful Festival of the Valley or the Opet Festival, concomitant with the preparations for Ramesses V's burial. Ramesses VI visited the city on at least another occasion during his reign, when he installed