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sunshinersforcedlaug t1_j906298 wrote

Reply to comment by JunkoBig in Discovery of 4,500-year-old palace in Iraq may hold key to ancient civilisation | Archaeology by JesseBricks

> hill

Yes, hills made of the remains of a building or city.

>Coincidentally "tel" is the Arabic word for "hill".

Not a coincident :)

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OarsandRowlocks t1_j90gg00 wrote

I wonder if it means something similar in Hebrew.

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JunkoBig t1_j92ai39 wrote

That makes a lot of sense. I'm assuming that the word went from Arabic to Spanish, then to the new world where it was applied to ziggurat-hills?

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[deleted] t1_j92d8ze wrote

[deleted]

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JunkoBig t1_j92dmbx wrote

I know the origin of ziggurat, I just meant the curious use of "tell" to refer to such hills, and its purported Arabic origin. After checking Wikipedia it actually seems to have made it to English directly from Arabic.

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