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COURTESY ITALIAN ARCHAEOLOGICAL MISSION TO YEMEN (PHOTO R. VALENTINI @MAIRAY)

FRANKINCENSE CAPITAL. Whereas tribes such as the Qedarites dominated the North Arabian trade routes, much of the wealth that they conveyed came from the kingdoms along the southern edge of the Arabian Peninsula. In what is now Yemen, the kingdom of Ma’in, with its major trading center at the high walled town of Baraqish (ancient Yathill, shown here), established control over the South Arabian frankincense trade during the mid-first millennium BCE. Minaean trade connections extended throughout Arabia and the Near East and even to the Mediterranean and beyond.