Corpus of Minaic Inscriptions
The corpus of the Minaic inscriptions is composed by almost 1,400 texts, gathering all the epigraphic texts left in Minaic (elsewhere called Madhabaic) language. These come from the Jawf valley in northern Yemen (Corpus of Central Minaic inscriptions), but also from outside South Arabia, as the Minaean traders visited and settled in other regions and sites of the Arabian Peninsula and the Near East (Corpus of Marginal Minaic inscriptions).
Among the texts from the Jawf we count some of the most ancient South Arabian monumental texts, inscribed on beautiful objects and imposing architectural structures, which attest a cultural continuum between the city-states of the valley, who left inscriptions in Minaic language, and the kingdom of Sabaʾ as early as in the 8th century BC.
The texts of the following period are expression of the political hegemony of the kingdom of Maʿīn over the Jawf and also of its economic control over the trans-Arabian routes of the trade of incense. To this period are to be dated the Minaic inscriptions left outside South Arabia (the majority of which in the colony of Dedan) that we have collected in the Marginal Minaic corpus.
The texts of the following period are expression of the political hegemony of the kingdom of Maʿīn over the Jawf and also of its economic control over the trans-Arabian routes of the trade of incense. To this period are to be dated the Minaic inscriptions left outside South Arabia (the majority of which in the colony of Dedan) that we have collected in the Marginal Minaic corpus.
CORPORA BY LANGUAGE
Corpus of Central Minaic Inscriptions
The corpus of the Central Minaic inscriptions includes about 1,300 texts coming from Jawf, the northernmost South Arabian region. This corpus has been largely increased in the last years thanks to the edition of recent archaeological findings and of many interesting texts of the National Museum of Ṣanʿāʾ.