Was the pigment minium (lead oxide) named after the river Minus in Iberia?

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Abelardo Moralejo Laso addressed the etymology of the river's name in the 1980 article "Notas acerca de la hidronimia galega" (pp. 167-170). You are correct that there is no cinnabar near the MiΓ±o River, and there are competing etymologies for the river's name. Moralejo Laso notes that the word "minium", ostensibly for cinnabar, was also often used for other reddish minerals such as almagra or ochre, which do occur in northwestern Spain, citing dictionaries exhibiting the ambiguity in the term. He cites A. Tovar, who concluded that "admitting barely any doubt" the names of the mineral and the river are linked etymologically (although one other author links it to a river in Tuscany instead), and that the root of the MiΓ±o's name may have once meant "mineral" in general.

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