The long-guarded secret behind one of the CIA’s most famous mysteries is heading to auction. Jim Sanborn, the artist behind Kryptos, the copper sculpture installed at the CIA headquarters in 1990 and known for its four encrypted messages, is selling the full solution to its final unsolved code, known as K4. While the first three passages were cracked years ago, K4 has resisted attempts by thousands of amateur and professional codebreakers for 35 years.
Now, Sanborn is putting his Kryptos archive up for sale through Boston-based RR Auction, which opened bidding last month. The lot includes the full K4 solution, a previously unknown alternate passage dubbed K5, and the original coding charts and scrambled texts for the sculpture’s earlier sections. Bidding is open until November 20, with the top offer already surpassing US$200,000.
In the internet age, encryption feels like a modern concept. But in fact, communicating in codes and ciphers has been around since long before the digital era. And so have scripts and glyphs that date back thousands of years and, to date, no one can figure out what they mean.
In this gallery, we look back at some of the most mysterious codes that remain uncracked. Click on to learn more.