[1] The precise chronological placement of Merneferre Ay varies between scholars, with Jürgen von Beckerath and Aidan Dodson seeing him as the 27th king of the dynasty[4] while Kim Ryholt and Darrell Baker place him in the 32nd and 33rd positions, respectively.

[7][8] The dispute was settled in the latest study of the Turin canon by Kim Ryholt who confirms that Merneferre Ay's reign length as recorded on the papyrus is "23 years, 8 months and 18 days".

"[1] This makes Merneferre Ay the longest-ruling pharaoh of the 13th Dynasty at a time when numerous short-lived kings ruled Egypt.

The egyptologists Kim Ryholt and Darrell Baker contend that Mernferre usurped the throne at the expense of his predecessor Wahibre Ibiau.

Other attestations of Ay include an obsidian globular jar now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art,[13] a ball dedicated to Sobek,[14] an inscribed limestone block, part of a lintel, discovered in 1908 by Georges Legrain in Karnak and a pyramidion.

[5] This may point to serious problems in Egypt at the time and indeed Ryholt and others believe that by the end of Ay's reign "the administration [of the Egyptian state] seems to have completely collapsed".

[18] Daphna Ben Tor believes that this event was triggered by the invasion of the eastern Delta and the Memphite region by Canaanite rulers.

Indeed some egyptologists believe that by the end of Ay's reign the 13th dynasty had lost control of Lower Egypt, including the Delta region and possibly Memphis itself.