É (temple)


É is the Sumerian word or symbol for house or temple.
The Sumerian term É.GAL denoted a city's main building. É.LUGAL was used synonymously. In the texts of Lagash, the É.GAL is the center of the ensi's administration of the city, and the site of the city archives.
Sumerian É.GAL is the probable etymology of Semitic words for "palace, temple", such as Hebrew היכל heikhal, and Arabic هيكل haykal. It has thus been speculated that the word É originated from something akin to *hai or *ˀai, especially since the cuneiform sign È is used for /a/ in Eblaite.
The term TEMEN appearing frequently after É in names of ziggurats is translated as "foundation pegs", apparently the first step in the construction process of a house; compare, for example, verses 551–561 of the account of the construction of E-ninnu:
Temen has been occasionally compared to Greek temenos "holy precinct", but since the latter has a well established Indo-European etymology, the comparison is either mistaken, or at best describes a case of popular etymology or convergence.
In E-temen-an-ki, "the temple of the foundation of heaven and earth", temen has been taken to refer to an axis mundi connecting earth to heaven, 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.

List of specific temples