THE SCULPTURE

The sculpture’s two left panels contain four sections of encoded text.

The two right panels are meant to help decrypt the encoded text on the left side.

SECTION 1: DECRYPTED

The first section reads:

“Between subtle shading and the absence of light lies the nuance of iqlusion.”

SECTION 2: DECRYPTED

The second section includes a reference ( WW ) to William Webster, a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency:

“It was totally invisible. How’s that possible? They used the earth’s magnetic field. x The information was gathered and transmitted undergruund to an unknown location. x Does Langley know about this? They should: it’s buried out there somewhere. x Who knows the exact location? Only WW. This was his last message. x Thirty eight degrees fifty seven minutes six point five seconds north, seventy seven degrees eight minutes forty four seconds west. x Layer two.”

SECTION 3: DECRYPTED

The third section recounts Howard Carter’s description of finding Tutankhamun’s tomb:

“Slowly, desparatly slowly, the remains of passage debris that encumbered the lower part of the doorway was removed. With trembling hands I made a tiny breach in the upper left hand corner and then, widening the hole a little, I inserted the candle and peered in. The hot air escaping from the chamber caused the flame to flicker, but presently details of the room within emerged from the mist. x Can you see anything q?”

SECTION 4: UNSOLVED

Despite many attempts to decrypt it, the final section of the Kryptos sculpture remains unsolved.

Jim Sanborn, the sculptor, told The New York Times in 2010 that the 64th to 69th characters, which read NYPVTT , will read BERLIN when decoded.