Spauta

SPAUTA (Σπαῦτα), a lake in Media Atropatene, which is intensely salt, so as to cause the itch on the bodies of persons who have unwittingly bathed in it, with injury also to their clothes (Strab. 11. p. 523). Its present name is the Sea of Urumiah. Its earliest Armenian name is said to have been Kaputan, or Kaputan Chow, whence the Greek form would seem to have been modified. (L. Ingigi, Archaeol. Armen. 1. p. 160; St. Martin, Mémoires, 1. p. 59.) It is probably the same as the Μαρτιανὴ λίμνη of Ptolemy (Ptol. 6.2.17). Many travellers have visited it in modern times. (Tavernier, i. ch. 4; Morier, Sec. Voy. 2. p. 179.)