Pillar 1

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Pillar 01-Night01.jpg

Pillar 01 is the "Title Pillar".

It contains an alphabetic cipher text at the top (Unsolved at the moment), a labrinthine cipher (Solved), the sculpture's title "NKRYPT" and a series of numbers around the bottom which probably form part of a cipher (Unsolved).

Pillar 1 is 2569mm tall, and is the tallest of the eight pillars.

Top Cipher

Large view of the cipher at the top of Pillar 1

The top cipher is very high and difficult to read (unless you are very tall). It consists of a grid of 10 rows and 26 columns wrapping around the entire pillar.

The cipher text reads

OXPUWAOEKZVCRLUYFMLXTPNATW

VGZTCGVGDAAXFDKOCRFRUOKAPW

LCMPTFPBTYXRSZKKQUBJAMHYUL

MZVSXXZHDLYHOKWWEJUXLXKRZU

PPESLBOEKOGRTAYDFOHRHVMPBN

DTEZBTYDXNMPXHVNKCIYEMJFVE

MNKDIQBOSUFFFWBVDNKHRTLIMZ

WRRQUFNNBGKUWNQCHDEFSTZZRQ

UIUDPTKGATPSJIFXXGGSNTWJLA

BRYVUCSBNPYAVSTTONZFWIUUNW

The letters 'P', 'V', and 'L' are in a larger font size.

The current best decryption is:

Bottom cipher - Solved

Large view of the text in the middle of Pillar 1

The bottom cipher is at eye height. It contains letters in a grid of 5 rows and 26 columns. It contains what appear to be plain text words. A glyph containing an oscilating line and a dissected triangle points into one column of letters.

The cipher text reads:

ALABYRINTHSTANDSBEHATAWAIT

EHTHCUORHTPEOYEROFTSAMGINE

ATONEBYONESTUATHEYCREATETH

IEFOENOTUBSIDNSNRETTRAMTHG

ETWISTSANDTURNSFORPAKALLTH

A solution posted by Glenn McIntosh on the nkrypt Facebook page on 20 February 2013

A labyrinth stands before you

and is but one of eight

mark all the twists and turns

for patterns they create

that one by one step through

the enigmas that await

Base

A string of numbers run in a circular pattern around the base of each pillar (see notes on the base code). On this pillar, it reads:

10 12 11 12 11 11 14 17 30 30 16 18 11 12 10 10 10 14 19 24 12 12 12 13 7 9 8 11 14 14