This region is marked by traditions of record-keeping that go back thousands of years and by generations of historians devoted to mining those records. It is often called the "Cradle of Western Civilization," but it is also very much the cradle of volcanology. The earliest known documentation of volcanism is an Anatolian wall painting of a nearby cinder cone eruption around 6200 BC; the vigorous record of Etna goes back to 1500 BC; and the catastrophic eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, with the burial of Pompeii, continues to serve today as an object lesson in volcanism. The region has given us the first documented "new mountain," Monte Nuovo, in 1538, the first "new island" at Santorini, in 197 BC, and the word "volcano" itself (derived from Vulcan, the Roman god of fire). (Citation from the Global Volcanism Program (Smithsonian Institution):)