Nemrut (volcano) of the earliest trade routes. Two eruptions of Nemrut were probably witnessed by people of Urartu, an ancient state located in the eastern Turkey. These eruptions occurred c. 787 BC (period of King Menua) and c. 657 BC (period of King Rusa II), and the latter eruption might cause the sudden disappearance of the city Uaiais located 30 km east of Süphan. In the 1980s, Japanese volcanologists studied the evolution of gases inside the caldera of Nemrut. They found that the ratio of helium isotopes He/He is 1.06, which indicates volcanic activity (most of the measured helium evolved from the
Nemrut (volcano) discovered that Nemrut played an important role in the life of the first civilizations. Despite the abundance of obsidian sources in Anatolia and Iran, Nemrut was the main source of obsidian – the most important material of the Stone Age – for all settlements in Mesopotamia and the settlements of the Mesolithic era around the Dead Sea. The analysis of obsidian products revealed that the population of those areas used obsidian from only two sources: Nemrut and the nearby dormant volcano Bingöl. An ancient center of obsidian processing and trade was found at Lake Van, which was part of one