 Mainstream scholars hold that "kmt" means "the black land" or "the black place", and that this is a reference to the fertile black soil which was washed down from Central Africa by the annual Nile inundation.By contrast the barren desert outside the narrow confines of the Nile watercourse was called "dšrt" (conventionally pronounced "deshret") or "the red land".Raymond Faulkner's "Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian" translates "kmt" into "Egyptians", Gardiner translates it as "the Black Land, Egypt".