“Carter's book and the sculpture's own texts as running keys, on tables rebuilt from the puzzle's words”
The key texts are Carter's Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen and the sculpture's carved texts (experiments 17 and 21) instead of K1-K3; one of the two alphabets is standard or KRYPTOS and the other the keyword mixing of a vocabulary word, since the full 63 x 63 pool over 570,000 offsets is beyond the budget.
Experiments 17 and 21 slid the sculpture's own texts and Howard Carter's book along the fourth messagethe message The 97 letters of English that Jim Sanborn wrote and enciphered. as a long secret word, using the sculpture's tablethe table The right-hand half of the sculpture, 26 rows of the alphabet each shifted one place further, starting from the word KRYPTOS., and found nothing. Here the table is rebuilt from each word the puzzle knows, on one side at a time, and the sliding is done again, forwards and backwardsa mirror Reading or writing the text from the end to the start., at every starting point.
Words in the margin are defined on the glossary page.
1.1
The method at work
The carved letters go in at the top; the reading comes out at the bottom.
the key row
A running key is a long text written under the message, one letter per place. Drawn here: the opening of Carter's The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen, volume 1, with the BERLIN alphabet for the message and the standard one for the copper.
the rule
The search slides the text one letter at a time along the message, forwards and backwards; three misses among the 24 known places end an offset.
the bound
855,602,976 trials: Carter's book and the sculpture's own texts, every offset, both directions, one alphabet built from a puzzle word: no offset comes within two misses.
2
Best candidate against the known letters
This experiment produced no candidate: the search ruled everything out before a full text was built. Its product is the bounded negative in section 7.
3
Walkthrough, by hand
Redo the method on a few letters with pencil and paper.
Build the alphabet from BERLIN for the message letters and from CLOCK for the carved letters.
Lay the K1 plaintext under the fourth message starting at some offset, so each position has a key letter.
Position 22 is E: find E in the BERLIN alphabet, add the key letter's place in the plain alphabet, and read the result in the CLOCK alphabet; compare with the carved F.
A miss counts one; three misses end this offset.
Slide the offset along the whole text, then reverse the text, then try the next pair of alphabets.
the worksheet: the first steps by hand, on squared paper
4
Worked example, generated
The same steps run by the code on the real letters.
plain alphabet BERLIN/keyword BERLINACDFGHJKMOPQSTUVWXYZ
cipher alphabet CLOCK/keyword CLOKABDEFGHIJMNPQRSTUVWXYZ
key text: Carter volume one at offset 0, key letters on the standard order; Vigenere
pos plain key result carved match
22 E U V F no
23 A M S L no
24 S L K R no
25 T I L V no
64 B C O N no
65 E A L Y no
5
Hypothesis, for a cryptanalyst
Family, key space, the constraint under test, and the clues it reads.
Experiments 17 and 21 killed the sculpture's texts and Carter's book as running keys under 24 conventions; 45 killed K1-K3 under keyword-mixed alphabets. The remaining corner is these longer texts under mixed alphabets (C5, C7, C25). Sources: Carter volume one as scanned, the carved tableau by rows and columns, the Morse plaintexts, the right-hand panel, each forward and backward, every cyclic offset. Alphabet pairs: one side standard or KRYPTOS, the other any of the 61 keyword mixings, both ways round, with the key letters on the standard or KRYPTOS order and three modes. About 900 million trials with early exit at three mismatches. Bounds: complete for these texts and this restricted pool; both sides mixed is not covered.
6
Prediction
Written before the run; the result decides it.
No text, offset, direction or alphabet pair explains all 24 known letters, and none comes within two mismatches. Zero candidates pass.
7
Method
Build the key texts and the alphabet pool.
For each plain and cipher alphabet, key alphabet and mode, precompute the cipher letter for every (plain, key) pair.
For each text, direction and offset, count mismatches at the 24 cribs, stopping at the third.
Keep trials within two mismatches; decrypt and submit any with zero.
8
Result and bounds
The harness's record: candidates, gates, loss, and the negative result this experiment leaves behind.