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".[1] The terms "Dynasty 0" and especially "Dynasty 00" are widely seen as playful, but are frequently used nonetheless in absence of a more agreed-upon term.