Kryptos, Copper sculpture at CIA Headquarters in Langley, United States
The Kryptos sculpture consists of four copper plates forming an S-shaped scroll with encrypted text, surrounded by granite, quartz, and petrified wood elements.
Artist Jim Sanborn installed this cryptographic sculpture at the George Bush Center for Intelligence in 1990, collaborating with CIA cryptographer Edward Scheidt on message encoding.
Three of the four encrypted sections have been decoded, revealing poetic phrases and references to King Tutankhamun's tomb discovery, while the fourth remains unsolved.
The sculpture measures 12 feet in height and contains approximately 1,800 characters spread across its copper surface, incorporating a water fountain at its base.
The National Security Agency cryptanalysts decoded three sections by 1992, yet the final 97-character message continues to challenge code breakers worldwide.
Location: Langley
Inception: 1990
Creator: Jim Sanborn
Official opening: November 3, 1990
Made from material: copper, granite, petrified wood, quartz
GPS coordinates: 38.95226,-77.14575
Latest update: May 26, 2025 19:07
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