Therefore this hieroglyphic inscription begins with the personal pronoun
or I. That is very easy, of course.
"Now, the most ancient of Egyptian inscriptions read vertically in columns; there are only two columns in this papyrus, so we'll try it vertically and pass downward to the next symbol, which is inclosed in a sort of frame or cartouch. That immediately signifies that royalty is mentioned; therefore, we have already translated as much as 'I, the king (or queen).' Do you see?"
"Yes," said Burke, staring.
"Very well. Now this symbol, number two,
spells out the word 'Meris,' in this way: M (pronounced me) is phonetically symbolized by the characters
r by