First, the historical books and reports will be reviewed. The ancient lake of Saveh is one of them. An account of a now absent Saveh Lake (named after a city in the southwest of the study area near the Great Kavir Desert) is mentioned in Tarix-I Qom (
Qomi and Qomi 1934;
Dieulafoy 1887;
Dickie et al. 1978;
Hill and Grabar 1967). He reports the drying of Saveh Lake during the Hakhamaneshi period between 500 – 400 B.C. According to this account there was a lake between Ekbatan (ancient Hamedan) and Rhagae (ancient Rey). Hassan Qomi and Oomi (
1934) indicated that there was a great lake covering the land of Saveh and Qom. In addition, Hossaini Qumi (
Huntington 1905;
Qummi 1976) mentioned that one of the Persian kings discharged the lake located in Aveh (25 km south of Saveh city). There are many comparable stories about now absent lakes in Iran (e.g., in Golpaygan) (
Okhravi and Djamali 2003). Mustawfi Qazvini (
Qazvini, Browne, and Nicholson 1330) stated that the Saveh Lake was situated in the Saveh town and was fed by the Mazduqan-Chay, the long river passing through the southern part of Saveh. This story has been similarly recounted in some major books listed below (
Okhravi and Djamali 2003):
- Tarrx ur-Rusul-i va al-Mula of Muhammad-ibn-i Djarir-i Tabari (260 H.Q.)(Tabari 1972)
- Tarix-i Ya’qabi of Ahmad-ibn-i Abi Ya’qab (3th century H.Q.)
- Mudjmal ut-Tawarix-i va al-Qisas of an anonymous writer of 6th century H.Q.
- FarsnAma of Ibn ul-Balxi (7th century H.Q)
- Tarix-i Guzida (730 H.Q.) and Nuzhat ul-Qtdab of (740 H.Q.) of Hamd Mustawfi Qazvini
- Nuzhat ul-Qulub of Hamd Mustawfi Qazvini (740 H.Q.)
- Athar va Axbar ulebad of Zakareya ibn-i Mahmud Qazvini (7th century H.Q.)