 A version of the theory has been revived by some modern scholars, most notably David Rohl, and Michael Rice, who have advanced reasons in support of a Mesopotamian origin of Dynastic Egypt in books such as Rohl's "Legend-The Genesis of Civilisation" and Rice's "Egypt's Making".According to Rohl, "There is little evidence of kingship and its rituals very much before the beginning of the 1st Dynasty; no signs of the gradual development of metal working, art, monumental architecture and writing—the defining criteria of early civilisation.Much of what we know about the pharaohs and their complex culture seems to come into existence in a flash of inspiration."