Kryptos

Kryptos, named for the Greek word for “hidden,” is an environmental artwork integrated into the landscape surrounding the CIA headquarters building. Based on the theme of intelligence gathering, artist Jim Sanborn created a multi-faceted artwork depicting information accrual through the ages. Components of the work include a petrified tree, representing the historic material source for written language, and a bubbling pool, symbolizing widespread information dissemination. The most prominent and widely recognized feature of the sculpture is a large, vertical, S-shaped copper screen, resembling a scroll, that that is perforated by a code of 1,735 letters.  Sanborn worked with a retired CIA cryptographer to devise the messages, each with a different cipher, divided into four sections. In 1998, the first three sections of the sculpture were solved by a CIA physicist. The encryption for the final section remains unbroken.

Sanborn earned his Master of Fine Arts degree in sculpture in 1971 from the Pratt Institute in New York. His work has been exhibited widely at museums in the United States and abroad.  Among Sanborn’s many public commissions are three additional GSA projects: Indian Run (1995) for the U.S. Courthouse in Greenbelt, Maryland; Ex Nexum (1997) for the U.S. Courthouse in Little Rock, Arkansas; and Binary Systems (1999) for the IRS Computing Center in Martinsburg, West Virginia.