How did we find abscissa in Kryptos? From brute forcing the Vigenere cipher in K2 and then reverse-engineering the keyword to be used with the provided tableau on the copperplate.
How were we supposed to find abscissa? Either the way we did or it was to be provided as a sort of clue in a previous section. No matter, we know it is there and it is important.
What is an abscissa anyways? It’s basically the X coordinate of a point on a graph that uses the Cartesian coordinate system. Don’t like math? Probably shouldn’t be playing with Kryptos but here’s an easier definition:
Set the origin (0,0) at the base of the building at ground level. If I’m throwing eggs off the roof at my boss’ car then their final Y coordinate will be 0, or the ground. His car is parked 12 feet away in the employee of the month spot, again. If I get the eggs to land that far, then their X coordinate or abscissa is 12 feet. The final coordinates of the eggs will be (12 feet, 0 feet) give or take a few feet for the height of the car and whether I miss.
“Geesh, what a long-winded, passive-aggressive commentary; I lost track of what you were saying buddy…”
There are more uses of palimpsest than abscissa but it still gets used in some pretty weird ways. What I was trying to emphasize here is the use of abscissa by its traditional, accepted, dictionary definition.
You can say it means “X marks the spot” or apply it to the geographical coordinates but make an effort to keep it within the bounds of what most people would consider a fair use of the word. Claiming that it implies an abscission is just wrong people!
Abscissa seems so out of left field. It doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the text of K1. “Shadow” or “Iqlusion” seem like better keywords than abscissa.
What do you think about the argument that we were supposed to get it from the abscised “digetal interpretati”?
The problem is that it’s “abscissa” not “abscise” or “abscised”. Also, this isn’t much more of an argument than getting palimpsest from the fact that copper sheets are peeking out from under the rocks in the front lawn.
I had an abscessed tooth a week ago…
Well, I think I found what you are looking for…
So here we go, this is my theory!
I call it:
THE TREE IS THE KEY
If you look at the sculpture so what kann you see???
At its left side there is a pertrified tree. And in my eyes, the whole thing, espezially the top of it, it looks like key…but at this point it doesn’t tell us very much…But there is another tree, which is not so easy to see…
Almost all of the rows have 30 letters / charakters. Most of them have 31, some of them 32 (and one with 33)
If you now draw a line between column 31 and 32 and then paint the letters on the on the right side (in column 32 and 33) and also the holes on the left side (column 30 and 31)…you (mayby) can see a tree, a very abstract one…
Well now let us go back to the abscissa problem…
I have to admit, that the quest for something is a little easier if you know, what you are searching for…abscissa, a word with 8 letters, right!?
So if you now look a the abstract tree, what can you see? On the right side, in the columns 32 and 33 you will count 8 letters. Reading them from the top they are: JRXARIIT
On a first look this doesn’t seem to mean anything. But look a lttle closer to it…For example you have got R which could be the A in abscissa…and you have two I and one J. If you now assume that you can I for J (or vice versa), so you know have three I or J…perhaps the S in abscissa…???
So just write JRXARIIT in an other way….for example: RAITXIIR or RAJTXJJR
And in my eyes it was looking like abscissa, only with substituted letters…
And it looks like a simple monoalphabetic substitution using a caesar-cipher
So I decided to check this out. There are only 6 or better 12 ways to write the lettrs in the right direction: rajtxiir rxjatiir rtjxaiir rtjaxiir rxjtaiir rajxtiir
rajtxjjr rxjatjjr rtjxajjr rtjaxjjr rxjtajjr rajxtjjr
First I tried to decode it with C because of the caesar-cipher…no result…then I tried other letters and again no result…I tried the K because of KRYPTOS…again nothing…
Then I used the R from kryptos (the second letter for the second text / K2???)
And again bullshit I thought…
But then I was watching the results…
ajscgrra agsjcrra acsgjrra acsjgrra agscjrra ajsgcrra
ajscgssa agsjcssa acsgjssa acsjgssa agscjssa ajsgcssa
And so…there was something: agscjssa
If you know replace g for b and see again J as an I…it is ABSCISSA
Well I know this not 100% perfekt, but mayby I did a few “mistakes”…
I was using an alphabet starting with R and went on with STUVW and so on…
Perhaps I should have been using RYPTOSUVW and so on or something else that includes the letters of KRYPTOS or some of them at the beginning…
And perhaps it should be used an alphabet where I and J is already seen as one…
But with my programm I was not able to do that and checking it again by paper and pencil, I am a little to lazy
And mayby the mistake with the G instead of B was wanted by Jim Sanborn, who knows…
Well I also have to admit, that I found no clue that says: Use a monoalpabetic substitution / caesar-cipher…but I think you can see that already when you read RAITXIIR or RAJTXJJR…
Ok, this was my theory about abscissa. I hope you like it…and mayby it is really the way Sanborn wanted us to crack it…
Wolfi from Munich/Germany
Abscissa. Ha! I definitely understand its significance after a sudden “ah ha” moment a couple weeks ago. It’s much simpler than I anticipated. It points to something that tells us the method of encryption for each section! With that, I can say with almost certainty the category of cipher K4 incorporates.
The Kryptos Tableau as a Vigenere Cipher is essentially just an XYZ Co-ordinates grid. You take a letter position from the top row, and match it with a letter on the left column to get an intersecting letter in the middle. However it only becomes clear when you enlarge the grid outside of it’s boundaries to see where the code shifts are coming from. The Kryptos Tableau when calculated in every possible combination shows the pattern.