During the 1st millennium BC and into the Roman period a prosperous civilisation, based largely upon trade in incense, grew up in south Arabia (modern Yemen and parts of Saudi Arabia and Oman). These Arabs had the monopoly on production and trade of two of the most prized materials of ancient times: frankincense and myrrh. These aromatic resins only grow in eastern Yemen and southern Oman and in some parts of Somalia. Every temple and wealthy home in the Mediterranean and Near East burnt the resins on altars, and purchasers were prepared to pay its weight in gold. As a result the South Arabians grew tremendously wealthy.

Merchants brought these resins as well as spices, gold, ivory, pearls, precious stones, and textiles from Africa, India, and the Far East to Roman markets. They carried their wares by camel caravans along the western edge of Arabia’s central desert about 100 miles inland from the Red Sea coast. The overland trade routes originally started in Hadhramawt, the easternmost kingdom of South Arabia, and ended at Gaza, a southern Palestinian port on the Mediterranean Sea. A mid-1st century AD document known as the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, possibly written by an Egyptian ship-captain, details the maritime trade routes; ports of the Red Sea, Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf.