Directory:Punzhu Puzzles/Cryptic
Cryptic puzzles.
Cryptic puzzles are code word puzzles. Code puzzles originally began as a form of messaging for the military and governments... the secret message or cipher.
Ancient Greeks reportedly employed the first cipher method around 400 BC as a message method between military leaders.
They employed a tapered wooden stick with a piece of parchment wrapped around it, making sure the ends of the parchment didn't overlap. A message was then inscribed on the parchment, which when unwrapped was just a bunch of meaningless letters; unless you knew which size stick was used to create the original message. To decode the message you simply placed the cipher parchment on the correct size of tapered rod. This was called a "scytale".
In the early 1400's the Arabs devised and used both substitution and transposition ciphers. About 1412 al-Kalka-shandY included in his encyclopaedia explicit instructions on how to cryptanalize cipher text and provided lengthy examples to illustrate this technique.
Around the late 1400's some European governments used two rotating concentric circles containing a sequence of 26 letters. One disk was used for the plain text and the other was for the corresponding coded letter. Punzhu Puzzles uses this form for its cryptic puzzles.
The Vatican houses a manual produced in 1379 by Gabriele de Lavinde, who served Pope Clement VII, which contains brief code called vocabularies, or nomenclators, that were then expanded and used by nearly all European governments.
All modern ciphers, password generators, encryption devices and other code systems are but advances based upon the basic letter substitution created in the thirteen and fourteen hundreds.
Example:
X D D I V M C P Z J T L B C P W, L X W W N V P M
K C Z C P X O V P W, C Z J P A L O T V Z M C F T J C W X Z M
V O B C P J V M C W A W O C I W X P C Q G O X M F X Z J C W
Q X W C M G L V Z O B C Q X W T J D C O O C P
W G Q W O T O G O T V Z J P C X O C M T Z O B C O B T P O C C Z
X Z M H V G P O C C Z B G Z M P C M W.
Plain: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Cipher: X Q J M C H K B T S U D I Z V L R P W O G F N E A Y
Solution is the sentence before this example.
Punzhu Puzzle cryptic puzzles usually contain three letters in both the Plain and Cipher hint section. Sometimes for a more challenging puzzle we include only one or two letters, or no hint letters. Some of our puzzles will have code hints for the letters A, B, or C in the solution. Sometimes our puzzles will have other combinations.
The irregular alignment of code and plain letters in hint section, as may appear here in your browser window, does not occur in our magazines.
To help solvers we provide an extra 2 or 3 blanks lines between the coded word sections in our cryptic puzzles, for the placement of possible solution letters under the cryptic letters.
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