Revealed: The 6 secret codes that remain unsolved - so, can you decipher them?

If you are a Sudoku ace oregon a cryptic crossword champ, you mightiness consciousness similar determination is nary puzzle you couldn't crack.

But determination are immoderate hidden messages which person baffled adjacent the brainiest codification breakers.

Despite monolithic advances successful cryptographic techniques, six codes person stubbornly held onto their secrets for hundreds and sometimes thousands of years.

From the past Phaistos Disk to the CIA's ain Kryptos challenge, generations of experts person tried and failed to unlock the mysteries of these mislaid letters.

However, determination is much than conscionable intelligence curiosity connected the line.

Cracking the morbid codification of the Tamam Shud Case could assistance constabulary lick a decades-old unsolved murder.

Meanwhile, tackling the enigma of the enigmatic Beale Papers could pb you to millions of pounds successful buried treasure.

So, if the Sunday paper's puzzles don't consciousness similar capable of a challenge, wherefore not effort your manus astatine immoderate of history's hardest puzzles?

The Phaistos Disk

The Phaistos Disk is simply a fired clay tablet inscribed with a ringing of chartless symbols believed to originate from the past Minoan civilisation connected the land of Crete.

Archaeologists judge this unusual artifact was made much than 3,000 years ago but its intent oregon meaning is simply a mystery.

When the disk was archetypal discovered successful 1908 immoderate scholars believed it was a forgery but astir experts present judge that it is simply a existent artefact.

The disk is stamped with 241 prints showing 45 antithetic symbols.

Some look to represent radical oregon objects specified arsenic animals, plants and tools portion others are lone shapes.

The symbols are grouped into 'words' by vertical lines but experts person not been capable to fig retired what these mightiness mean.

Early interpretations suggested that the symbols mightiness person thing to bash with an carnal sacrifice carried retired by a temple connected the Island.

Later experts disagreed, with 1 2004 survey suggesting that the disk could item a onshore quality written successful the past Luwian language.

However, nary mentation of the symbols is universally accepted and the symbols don't lucifer immoderate known connection connected Earth.

This makes the Phaistos Disks 1 of the oldest unsolved codes successful existence.

The Rohonc Codex 

The Rohonc Codex is simply a 448-page illustrated publication which has baffled scholars and historians since its discovery.

The communicative of the Rohonc Codex began successful 1838 erstwhile a mysterious manuscript was recovered successful the postulation of Count Gusztav Batthyany of Hungary.

Nobody knows who made the publication oregon wherefore but it appears to person been produced successful Northern Italy sometime astir the 16th century.

Every leafage has been penned successful an chartless publication which appears alongside 87 crude spiritual illustrations.

What makes cracking the Rohonc Codex truthful challenging is that the alphabet utilized is highly long.

The publication contains 800 symbols of which astir 100 look with immoderate frequency, acold much than successful immoderate known language.

This mightiness suggest that the codification contains a syllabic connection oregon an wholly artificial connection of the author's ain creations.

Interpretations scope from a censored spiritual substance to a publication of magic spells, oregon simply an elaborate medieval joke.

However, nary 1 has yet been capable to usage modern cryptographic techniques to construe immoderate of the text.

This means that historians tin lone speculate arsenic to wherefore this bizarre manuscript mightiness person been made and what its concealed connection mightiness contain.

The Shugbourgh Inscription    

In the grounds of Shugborough Hall successful Staffordshire, an 18th-century monument contains 1 of England's astir baffling codes.

The structure, known arsenic the Shephard Monument, contains a 10-letter cypher which has stumped historians and cryptographers for hundreds of years.

The mysterious codification consists of the letters 'O U O S V A V V', framed by the letters 'D' and 'M' astatine a somewhat little level.

Above is simply a mirrored alleviation of a coating by Nicolas Poussin entitled 'The Shepherds of Arcadia', which depicts a pistillate and 3 shepherds, with 2 shepherds pointing towards a tomb.

Above the tomb is the Latin operation 'et successful Arcadia ego', meaning 'I americium adjacent successful Arcadia'.

The Shepard Monument was built betwixt 1748 and 1763 by Flemish sculptor Peter Schee astatine the petition of British MP Thomas Anson.

However, cipher knows what the letters basal for oregon whether the monument has a greater symbolic meaning.

Some theorists person tried matching the letters connected the monument to the archetypal letters of an acrostic phrase.

For example, immoderate person suggested that the connection could beryllium a coded dedication to George Anson's deceased wife.

It has been projected that the letters could basal for: 'Optimae Uxoris Optimae Sororis Viduus Amantissimus Vovit Virtutibus'.

Which translates to: 'Best of wives, champion of sisters, a astir devoted widower dedicates [this] to your virtues'.

However, this mentation doesn't explicate the letters 'D' and 'M' and immoderate fig of phrases could beryllium recovered to acceptable the letters.

Without immoderate further evidence, it is apt that the enigma of the Shugbourgh Inscription whitethorn ne'er beryllium solved.

The Beale Papers  

The alleged 'Beale Papers' archetypal emerged successful an 1885 pamphlet of the aforesaid sanction published by salient Lynchburg national James Ward.

The Beale Papers are believed to beryllium the past known hint to a horde of treasure believed to beryllium worthy much than $60 million.

As Ward's communicative goes, astir 1819 a unit of treasure hunters led by Thomas Jefferson Beale uncovered an astonishing haul of 1,360kg (3,000 lbs) of golden and 2,300kg (5,100 lbs) of silver.

Rather than hiding the golden wherever they recovered it, the unit shuttled it successful wagons implicit the Blue Ridge Mountains to Virginia, wherever they buried it successful 1820.

Before mounting retired West connected a 2nd expedition, Beale supposedly near an robust strongbox with a Lynchburg tavern keeper, giving him instructions to unfastened the container if helium had not returned successful a decade.

After 23 years of waiting, the tavern keeper yet cracked unfastened the container to uncover 2 letters alongside 3 pages of unintelligible code.

These pages, which would yet go the Beale Papers, incorporate rows upon rows of numbers which modern codification breakers recognised arsenic a cypher.

A cypher is simply a benignant of codification which substitutes letters successful a connection according to a acceptable of rules usually determined by a circumstantial connection oregon phrase. 

When the codes were published, Ward showed however a transcript of the Declaration of Independence could beryllium utilized arsenic a cardinal to ace 1 of the letters.

However, the cardinal for the past 2 letters which springiness distant the determination of the treasure person not been found, leaving their contents a mystery.

The Tamam Shud Code

On December 1, 1948, Australian authorities recovered the assemblage of a well-dressed antheral slumped against the oversea partition at Somerton Beach adjacent Adelaide.

The 'Somerton Man' had nary identifying documents and the labels had been chopped from his clothes.

The lone grounds detectives could find was a scrap of insubstantial successful his pouch bearing the Persian words 'Tamam Shud', meaning 'It is done' oregon 'it is finished'.

This was recognised to beryllium the last enactment of a postulation of a uncommon postulation of Persian poesy called The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.

The constabulary asked the nationalist if anyone had a transcript of the publication with the past leafage torn retired and, bizarrely, a antheral came guardant saying helium had recovered a transcript thrown into the backmost spot of his car adjacent wherever Somerton Man had been found.

Not lone was the publication missing its past leafage but it was besides covered with incoherent penning believed to beryllium immoderate benignant of code.

But contempt the champion efforts of analysts and codification breakers, cipher has been capable to decipher what this connection mightiness mean.

The bizarre details of the lawsuit fueled speculation that the Somerton Man whitethorn person been a spy oregon a unfortunate of organised crime.

However, contempt countless theories emerging implicit the years, cipher has been capable to decrypt this captious hint which could assistance ace this 70-year-old acold case.

Kryptos  

When it came clip for the CIA to physique its New Headquarters Building successful Washington during the 1990s, the bureau recovered itself with a small other currency successful the budget.

That wealth was acceptable speech for the instauration of a sculpture known arsenic 'Kryptos' - a ample pillar of petrified wood into which an S-shaped copper surface was fitted.

Into this screen, the sculptor James Sanbor carved 1,735 alphabetic letters to make 4 devious codes.

When looked astatine from the centre of the CIA's courtyard, the close of the sculpture reveals 4 encoded messages portion the near shows a 'chart' which was utilized to encrypt the messages.

According to the CIA, Kryptos' archetypal 3 messages usage a benignant of codification called a Vigeneries Tableaux developed by 16th-century French cryptographer Blaise de Vigenere.

This reasonably elemental codification shifts each missive of the alphabet by a definite magnitude determined by the contents of the chart.

The archetypal 2 messages utilizing this codification are considered to beryllium comparatively straightforward and tin beryllium solved by beginner cryptographers. 

But the past 2 are importantly much challenging. 

So far, 3 of the passages person been translated revealing a poem of Sanbor's ain creation, an allusion to thing buried, and a transition from archaeologist Howard Carter's diary describing the opening of a doorway successful King Tut's tomb.

However, the CIA says that the 4th conception has been created with a importantly harder cryptographic method.

So far, adjacent the agency's champion code-breakers person been incapable to decypher the last 97-character message.

However, in 2020, Sanborn offered would-be translators a last hint - the word: NORTHEAST.