Research project Decipherment of Historical Manuscripts
Are you interested in breaking historical ciphers? Check out our project aiming at the automatic analysis and decipherment of historical secret writings.
We conduct fundamental research essential for assembling a valuable collection of resources and software tools for historical cryptology. These tools are applied to analyze and decrypt historical ciphers, spanning a wide range of ciphers used in early modern Europe.
Our contributions encompass the creation of the DECODE database with thousands of historical ciphertexts and keys, alongside tools for transcription and decipherment, all of which are accessible to the public. These accomplishments represent the results of two research projects, DECODE and its subsequent cross-disciplinary expansion, DECRYPT, both generously funded by the Swedish Research Council through grant E0067801 (2015-2017) and grant 2018-06074 (2019-2024).
Some decoded ciphers:
As part of our research efforts, we have initiated and established the HICRYPT network of professionals in historical cryptology. Additionally, we actively participate in the organization of the annual international conference on Historical Cryptology, HistoCrypt.
Read more about the conference here
Within the project, up to a hundred scientific publications have been produced. A selection of those that best describe the project can be found below.
For more publications, please visit the DECRYPT website.
Project members
Project managers
Beata Megyesi
Professor
Members
Micaella Bruton
PhD Student
Crina Madalina Tudor
PhD Student
