Following the sun ..

Urmia Lake, West Azerbaijan Province, Iran

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Following the sun, to find the one

Who's giving you the wings to fly

Following the sun, the golden one

Losing sense for space and time

 

Can you feel the waves of life

(Can you) hear the sigh of love

Do you believe in it ?

 

Following the sun, just for the one

Till you'll find the door you thought

Following the sun, like everyone

Searching for a sign of hope

 

Have a look up to the sky

See the billion stars above

'cause (maybe) on one of them

You'll spend your further life.

 

Enigma – Following The Sun

Written by Michael Cretu, Voyageur 2003

 

Lake Urmia :

 

Lake Urmia (Persian: Daryache-ye Orumiye,Azerbaijani Urmu gölü,Kurdish Wermy,Armenian: Կապուտան ծով,Kaputan ts'ov; ancient name: Lake Matiene) is a salt lake in northwestern Iran near Iran's border with Turkey.The lake is between the provinces of East Azerbaijan and West Azerbaijan in Iran,and west of the southern portion of the Caspian Sea.At its full size, it is the largest lake in the Middle East and the sixth largest saltwater lake on earth with a surface area of approximately 5,200 km² (2,000 mile²),140 km (87 mi) length,55 km (34 mi) width, and 16 m (52 ft) depth.

 

Lake Urmia along with its approximately 102 islands are protected as a national park by the Iranian Department of Environment.

 

History :

 

One of the early mentions of Lake Urmia is from the Assyrian records from 9th century BCE.There,in the records of Shalmaneser III (reign 858–824 BCE),two names are mentioned in the area of Lake Urmia:Parsuwash (i.e., the Persians) and Matai (i.e., the Mitanni).It is not completely clear whether these referred to places or tribes or what their relationship was to the subsequent list of personal names and "kings".But Matais were Medes and linguistically the name Parsuwash matches the Old Persian word pārsa,an Achaemenid ethnolinguistic designation.

 

"Lake Matianus" (Latin: Lacus Matianus) is an old name for Lake Urmia.It was the center of the Mannaean Kingdom,a potential Mannaean settlement,represented by the ruin mound of Hasanlu,was on the south side of Lake Matianus.Mannae was overrun by the people who were called Matiani or Matieni,an Iranian people variously identified as Scythian,Saka,Sarmatian,or Cimmerian.It is not clear whether the lake took its name from the people or the people from the lake,but the country came to be called Matiene or Matiane.

 

The lake is named after the provincial capital city of Urmia,originally a Syriac name meaning city of water.In the early 1930s,it was called Lake Rezaiyeh after Reza Shah Pahlavi,but after the Iranian Revolution in the late 1970s,the lake was renamed Urmia.Its ancient Persian name was Chichast (meaning, "glittering"–a reference to the glittering mineral particles suspended in the lake water and found along its shores).In medieval times it came to be known as Lake Kabuda (Kabodan),from the word for "azure" in Persian, or 'կապույտ' ("Kapuyt/Gabuyd") in Armenian.

Done