Editing Seti I (section)

==Alleged co-regency with Ramesses II==
Around Year 9 of his reign, Seti appointed his son [[Ramesses II]] as the crown prince and his chosen successor, but the evidence for a [[coregency]] between the two kings is likely illusory. [[Peter J. Brand]] stresses in his thesis<ref>{{cite thesis |degree=PhD | author=Peter J. Brand | title=The Monuments of Seti I and their Historical Significance |chapter=Studies on the Historical Implications of Seti I's Monuments | chapter-url=http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/tape17/PQDD_0009/NQ35116.pdf | year=1998 |publisher=University of Toronto | access-date=2011-02-26 | url-status=live | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070610181114/http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/tape17/PQDD_0009/NQ35116.pdf | archive-date=2007-06-10 }}</ref> that relief decorations at various temple sites at [[Karnak]], [[Kurna|Qurna]] and Abydos, which associate Ramesses II with Seti I, were actually carved after Seti's death by Ramesses II himself and, hence, cannot be used as source material to support a co-regency between the two monarchs. In addition, the late William Murnane, who first endorsed the theory of a co-regency between Seti I and Ramesses II,<ref>{{cite book|author=William Murnane|title=Ancient Egyptian Coregencies|year=1977}} Seminal book on the Egyptian coregency system</ref> later revised his view of the proposed co-regency and rejected the idea that Ramesses II had begun to count his own regnal years while Seti I was still alive.<ref>{{cite book|author=W. Murnane|title=The road to Kadesh: A Historical interpretation of the battle reliefs of King Seti I at Karnak |publisher=SAOC|year=1990|pages=93 footnote 90}}</ref> Finally, [[Kenneth Kitchen]] rejects the term co-regency to describe the relationship between Seti I and Ramesses II; he describes the earliest phase of Ramesses II's career as a "prince regency" where the young Ramesses enjoyed all the trappings of royalty including the use of a royal titulary and [[harem]] but did not count his regnal years until after his father's death.<ref>K.A. Kitchen, ''Pharaoh Triumphant: The Life and Times of Ramesses II, King of Egypt'', Benben Publication, (1982), pp. 27-30</ref> This is due to the fact that the evidence for a co-regency between the two kings is vague and highly ambiguous. Two important inscriptions from the first decade of Ramesses' reign, namely the Abydos Dedicatory Inscription and the Kuban Stela of Ramesses II, consistently give the latter titles associated with those of a crown prince only, namely the "king's eldest son and hereditary prince" or "child-heir" to the throne "along with some military titles."<ref>Brand, ''The Monuments of Seti I'', pp. 315–316</ref>

Hence, no clear evidence supports the hypothesis that Ramesses II was a co-regent under his father. Brand stresses that:

{{cquote|Ramesses' claim that he was crowned king by Seti, even as a child in his arms [in the Dedicatory Inscription], is highly self-serving and open to question although his description of his role as crown prince is more accurate...The most reliable and concrete portion of this statement is the enumeration of Ramesses' titles as eldest king's son and heir apparent, well attested in sources contemporary with Seti's reign.<ref>Brand, ''The Monuments of Seti I'', p. 316</ref>
}}