Question: I was wondering if you could help me translate something into English. This is apparently a country or a place or a town? Your help is much appreciated.

Answer: This is not a country or a town. The determinative for a country or town is a circle with a cross which looks like two streets intersecting. These hieroglyphs do not have this determinative. I am wondering if the hieroglyphs have been copied incorrectly. The second and third "r" (mouth) and the "n" (a water ripple) have been printed in a way that I have not seen before. However, I am not all-knowing, all-powerful, so it could be an earlier or later script which I haven't seen before. I am also wondering if the person wrote the hieroglyphs left to right, when they should have been right to left and the birds pointing the other way. That would make the first word begin with "r" . The problem with translation out of context is that the first two glyphs (a sparrow over a mouth) could mean great/greatness, chief, important, large, much or very or it could be two letters of a longer word. Unless it is a traditional funerary or offering phrase (and I haven't found one to match it), then - sorry I'm either not clever enough or simply unable to give it any meaning. If the first word is "great" then it could be a funerary inscription. Oh, what about the "great Roman Empire"?

 

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