Thrang Shield
Those who have faced Thrang may have noticed the large Egyptian-looking statues on the stair end of the arena:
Elvish script (Tengwar) appears on the shield that the statues are holding:
Rather than having an actual word, the artists appear to have used a mirror image so that one half of the word is the mirror image of the other.
About Tengwar
The Tengwar used in Middle-earth was devised by Fëanor, the same Noldo (High Elf) who created the Silmarils. The Tengwar alphabet is phonetic, so the same symbols can be used to write in many different languages.
The language we're most likely to encounter in Middle-earth using Tengwar would be Sindarin, the common language among Elves, or Quenya, the language spoken by the Noldor exiled from Aman.
The symbols appearing above Tengwar are called Tehtar. These represent vowels, and are used in different ways depending upon the language (Sindarin or Quenya) and mode (there are many). (I will not attempt to cover this complex subject here, but if you are interested in learning more a good place to start might be the Tengwar Help file found at Dan Smith's Tengwar fonts page.) [1]
The Tengwar found on the Shield
The Tengwa at the far right of the shield is óre, which is used to represent the letter 'r' as it appears either before a consonant or at the end of the word. In American English this word is pronounced, but in British English (and in the pronuciation used in some parts of New England) it is not pronounced but rather effects the pronunciation of the vowel.
Dan Smith indicates that the over-curve tehta we see above óre represents the 'o' found in the word 'for'. Since the final consonant is a final 'r' sound it makes the pronunciation of the word very clear. In both the Sindarin or English (used to represent the common tongue, or Westron, in Tolkien's works) mode, the final sound here is 'or'.
I am not completely certain what the symbol in the center is supposed to be because it is incomplete and mirrored, but the mostly likely candidate is númen, which represents the 'n' sound. The tehta above it represents the 'a' sound encountered in the word 'father'. So the first part of this mirrored word is 'an'.
Put the two together and the word represented on the shield appears to be Anor, the Sindarin word for 'sun'. We encounter this word in Minas Anor ('Tower of the Sun') -- this was the original name of Minas Tirith -- and at the Bridge of Khazad-dûm where Gandalf tells the Balrog that he is the "wielder of the flame of Anor".
It is not clear what Gandalf intended by this phrase, but two possibilities may be found in this entry at the Encyclopedia of Arda:
A mysterious power claimed by Gandalf in the face of Durin's Bane. It is nowhere else referred to, and so its particular meaning remains unclear. Anor is the Sun, and so literally the 'flame of Anor' would be the light of the Sun, which originated in the fiery fruit of Laurelin, one of the Two Trees of Valinor. Gandalf seems to be referring, then, to the power he gains as a servant of the Lords of the West, in defiance to the corrupted darkness of the Balrog.
Alternatively, it has been suggested that Gandalf is referring here to Narya, the Ring of Fire that he bore. This idea certainly fits with the notion that he was the 'wielder' of the Ring, and that it had a fiery character. However, it seems highly unlikely that Gandalf would want to reveal his ownership of a Ring of Power - a matter of utmost secrecy - to one of his greatest enemies.
Interestingly enough, the encounter following the defeat of Thrang is with a Balrog. Hmmm...