How is it that the Vikings were able to ply the waters of the North Atlantic no matter the weather and occasions when celestial navigation points were hidden by cloud cover? Historians and scientists have long pondered the methods that could have been used. Recently a method long thought to be the musings of mystics has emerged as being, well, a very probable tool.
Pixabay During and after the time of the Vikings, from the 8th to the 11th centuries AD, there were folkish stories about how the Nordic seamen used ‘sunstones’ to aid in navigating the waters of the fjords and beyond. Such mystic examples were mentioned in the Viking tale, ‘The Saga of King Olaf’ and was resurrected in an episode of the History Channel’s ‘Vikings’ series in which the historic figure of Ragnor Lothbrok displays his sunstone to his brother Rollo as they prepare to venture West. According to the tales, sunstones could reveal the location of the sun through heavy cloud cover. “This is all speculation, really,” says Stephen Harding, a biochemist at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom who wasn’t involved in the new study.
Pixabay But Harding did admit that while no evidence of sunstones have been found in or around Viking crafts, a “rough, whitish crystal” was found near the wreck of a 16th Century British vessel. It is known that the British often adopted navigational practices from the able Viking sailors. Scientific tests have also lent credence to the use of crystals as sunstones. ScienceMag writes that “several types of minerals—especially ultrapure crystals of calcite, cordierite, and tourmaline—can split a beam of sunlight to form two images, with polarized light taking a slightly different path than the main beam. By looking at the sky through such a crystal and then rotating it so the two images are equally bright, it’s possible to spot the rings of polarized light that surround the sun, even under cloudy skies. Identifying the sun’s location would give mariners a sure point of reference during long sea journeys.”
Pixabayidth=“1024” height=“768” class=“alignnone size-large wp-image-39079” /> Once the actual ability of a crystal to locate the sun was proven, tests were done to evaluate what impact the crystals had in regards to successful navigations. Gábor Horváth, a biophysicist at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest and his colleague Dénes Száz tested the crystals during several trial expeditions from Bergen, Norway to the Viking settlement of Hvarf, on Greenland’s southeastern coast. ScienceMag writes that “the team simulated 3600 voyages taken during the spring equinox, the presumed start of the open seas travel season, and the summer solstice, the longest day of the northern year. Otherwise, the simulations varied only by three factors: The amount of cloud coverage (which varied over the course of the day), the type of crystal used as the sunstone, and how often mariners consulted them. Each time a navigator made reference to a sunstone, the simulated ship adjusted its course if needed.”
Pixabay When the crystal was consulted every 4 hours the success rate of the flotilla was between 32 percent and 59 percent, If the measurements were taken every 5 to 6 hours, the success rate plummeted. But if the sunstone was used every 3 hours or less, the chances of landing successfully on Greenland was between 92 to 100 percent. The results were the same when all three types of crystals; calcite, a form of calcium carbonate; cordierite, an iron- and magnesium-rich silicate; and tourmaline, a boron-rich silicate; were used. While the Vikings were great boat builders, as Harding quipped, “if you got lost, you died.” So any tool that could aid in the chances of a successful voyage would have been eagerly used by the Vikings.
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