Minaeans
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Minaeans (also spelled Ma'in) were a group in ancient Yemen during the 1st millennium BC. Their Minaean Kingdom was one of the major kingdoms in ancient Yemen and Southwestern Arabia. Their capital was Qarnawu/Qarnaw (NW Yemen) along the strip of desert called Sayhad by medieval Arab geographers.
The Minaean people were one of four ancient Yemenite groups (Greek ethnos) classified by Eratosthenes. The others were the Sabeans, Hadramites and Qatabanians. Each of these had regional kingdoms in ancient Yemen, with the Minaeans in the north along the red sea, the Sabeans on the south western tip, streaching from the highlands to the sea, the Qatabanians to the east of them and the Hadramites east of them.
The Minaeans, like other Arabian and Yemenite kingdoms of the same period, were involved in the extremely lucrative spice trade, especially frankincense and myrrh.[1]
