The Sumerian term ร.GAL (๐๐ฒ,"palace", literally "big house") denoted a city's main building.
[4] Sumerian ร.GAL is the probable etymology of Semitic words for "palace, temple", such as Hebrew ืืืื heikhal,[5] and Arabic ูููู haykal.
It has thus been speculated that the word ร originated from something akin to *hai or *หai, especially since the cuneiform sign ร is used for /a/ in Eblaite.
Temen has been occasionally compared to Greek temenos "holy precinct", but the latter has a well established Indo-European etymology (from *temษ- meaning to cut).
[6] In E-temen-an-ki, "the temple of the foundation (pegs) of heaven and earth", temen has been taken to refer to an axis mundi connecting earth to heaven (thus re-enforcing the Tower of Babel connection), but the term re-appears in several other temple names, referring to their physical stability rather than, or as well as, to a mythological world axis; compare the Egyptian notion of Djed.