Simulation Suggests Viking Sunstones of Legend Could Have Worked
If they existed, the crystals—used to locate the sun’s position on cloudy days—could have helped Vikings sail to far away places
By Jason Daley
smithsonian.com
April 9, 2018 12:16PM
Vikings have gone down in history as legendary navigators, sailing their longships to places like Britain, Ireland, Greenland and even Newfoundland. Without magnetic compasses or tools like astrolabes, the Vikings likely relied on primitive solar compasses to navigate, which uses the position of the sun to determine north.
The problem is, in the North Sea and North Atlantic, their primary stomping grounds, the weather is iffy at best, and the sun spends considerable time behind the clouds. That’s why some archaeologists have hypothesized that Vikings used sunstones, or sólarsteinns, crystals they held up to the sky to reveal the sun’s position, even through heavy cloud cover. Now, reports Ben Guarino at The Washington Post, computer simulations show that, if sunstones were used, they would have been a huge aid in navigation, at least in certain conditions.
Read more:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/simulation-suggest-legendary-viking-sunstones-could-have-worked-180968710/#24d2331sVSdgDVJi.99
