Legendary Viking Sunstones Did Exist: Viking Sagas Were More Truthful Than We Realized

[Judi Lynn]

AncientPages.com | September 15, 2023 | Featured Stories, News, Vikings

A. Sutherland - AncientPages.com - Modern navigation instruments were unknown to Vikings, and they relied on own senses, celestial bodies, birds, swells, whales, chants, and rhymes to navigate the seas and discover new land.

They even took advantage of the wind and the stars as clues to make their navigation easier.

Viking sagas handed down orally from generation to generation may have been more credible sources of this kind of navigation than we earlier realized. The success of the voyage depended on several factors.

In their study, researchers analyzed as many as one thousand conceivable “three-week-long Viking voyages along the latitude 60°21'55" N from Norway to Greenland with changing cloudiness at summer solstice and spring equinox.”

When the sun was hidden by clouds or thick fog, the navigators had to determine first the position of the invisible sun, and it was performed by means of skylight polarization and sunstone (e.g. calcite, cordierite, or tourmaline) crystals functioning as linear polarizers.

Despite this important study, Viking navigation from Norway to America in the northern latitudes still remains a mystery for physicists, historians, and archaeologists. Crystal "sunstones" could have helped Viking sailors to navigate even when clouds or fog hid the sun and hindered long-distance sea voyages. One ancient travelogue can be found in the medieval Norse manuscript ’Hauksbók’. Various landmarks like trees, buildings, islands, hills, and more were often given place names based on their special characteristics. These names helped the Vikings navigate their way to their destination.

It is not known whether the Vikings really used the method, but if they did, they could navigate their ships precisely and with success.

More:
https://www.ancientpages.com/2023/09/15/legendary-viking-sunstones-exist-viking-sagas-truthful-realized/

[mitch96]

1. I wonder if a Viking sun stone has ever been found? nt

[Judi Lynn]

2. Haven't seen anything on it, yet, but I'll be watching.

[William Seger]

3. The tricky part is staying on the same latitude

Even if they had a very accurate way to determine due west, sailing due west would not ensure that they stayed on the same latitude. We still don't know exactly how they managed that, but presumably they had some way to measure the height of the noon sun or Polaris within one degree or so, because being more than one degree off would miss Greenland by more than 50 miles.

[mitch96]

4. I saw a facinating program about seafaring navigation

It was called "John Harrison and the Quest for Longitude".
There was a big prize to find Longitude. Harrison completed his first chronometer in 1735 and used it to find longitude and along with knowing your latitude you know where your position on earth is..
To find longitude you can use the the North star if the sky is clear or the Sun at noon.
I use to remember how to do it when I was learning Celestial navigation but I have long since forgot how to do it. I guess thats how the Vikings used the sunstone to find latitude. Shoot the sun was the term the instructor used. Another hobby gone by the wayside.
Fascinating stuff.

[Faux pas]

5. Kickin' & Rec'n

[Warpy]

6. Clear Iceland spar, crystalline calcium carbonate

They worked via polarized lite. A mark on one side would appear as two marks on the other. When the two marks were roughly the same color, they knew the stone was pointed in the direction of the sun, no matter how thick the cloud cover was.

They've found several over the years, the latest in a shipwreck in March, I believe.

Clever people, those Vikings.