 Modern Egyptologists have a number of competing hypotheses to explain conjectured "proto-dynastic" events that presumably led to the unification under the First Dynasty.Many scholars today mention evidence for a "Dynasty 0" that preceded the First Dynasty I.The term "Dynasty 00" is also used for the period preceding Dynasty 0 in connection with the Abydos-Thinis area and may correspond to a theoretical "Thinite Confederacy".