Scientists Have Proven That The Legendary Viking Sunstone Really Works - Alternative View

Scientists Have Proven That The Legendary Viking Sunstone Really Works - Alternative View
Scientists Have Proven That The Legendary Viking Sunstone Really Works - Alternative View

Video: Scientists Have Proven That The Legendary Viking Sunstone Really Works - Alternative View

Video: Scientists Have Proven That The Legendary Viking Sunstone Really Works - Alternative View
Video: Mythical Viking Sunstone Is Real 2024, March
Anonim

Scientists have found that the mystical Sunstone (Solstenen) from ancient legends can be used for sea navigation.

When the Vikings went to Greenland in drakkars at the end of the 10th century, they did not have a compass. It appeared in Europe only at the end of the 16th century. But how did they cover 1,600 nautical miles without straying off course for three weeks or more? At the same time, they had to get to a certain point on the island.

Archaeologist Gabor Horvath explains:

"Legends of the Vikings (the so-called sagas) tell of a mysterious instrument - the Sunstone - with which they could determine the position of the Sun, invisible in cloudy or foggy weather."

For example, in the Saga of King Olaf (ruled in Norway from 955-1030) there is a mystical story about how he spends the night in a strange rotating house, where he sees a strange dream about the Sunstone:

“The king made people look - and they could not see the clear sky anywhere. He then asked Sigurdur to tell where the sun was at that time. He gave a clear direction. Then the king ordered the sunstone to be brought, lifted it up and saw where the light radiated from the stone, and thus checked the prediction of Sigurdur."

The description resembles a kind of fairy tale, but in 1948 a real copy of the Uunartok disk was found. In combination with a certain Sunstone (Solstenen), according to legends, it served as the main navigation device.

Scientists, having analyzed the surviving texts of legends and found artifacts, realized that this is a special sundial with marks indicating the cardinal points and carvings that correspond to the changes in the shadow from the sundial's gnomon. It, in turn, depends on the equinox and solstice in spring and summer. Subject to the correct time and place, that is, at about 61 ° north latitude from May to September, the error was only four degrees. It is clear that the Vikings went to Greenland in the summer.

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A Sunstone was needed for the Uunartok disk to work. Archaeologist T. Ramscoe from Denmark, back in 1969, suggested that this is a kind of natural crystal that polarizes the light passing through it.

Recall that light passing through such a crystal is split into two beams with different polarizations. Accordingly, the brightness of the visible images depends on the polarization of the source light and differs from one another. The Vikings understood this pattern and smoothly changed the position of the crystal until both visible images received the same brightness. This method is effective even in foggy weather.

Tourmaline, iolite and Icelandic spar were theoretically suitable for the role of Solstenen. As scientists suggest, the latter was preferred. The results of the study were published in 2011.

Icelandic spar crystal
Icelandic spar crystal

Icelandic spar crystal.

However, the ideas described above were just speculations. The distance is very great - how could you get to Greenland with such devices?

New research has shown that this is real. G. Horvat used a computer model of a sea voyage from the port of Bergen (Norway) to the village of Hvarf on the southern coast of Greenland. Virtual ships began their voyage during the spring equinox or summer solstice. The clouds were chosen at random.

Then the program simulated the use of crystals of calcite, cordierite, tourmaline and aquamarine, taking into account the real parameters of these minerals, with a predetermined frequency. The voyage was considered successful if the ship arrived close enough to the mountains of the Greenland coast in the right place.

The program checked the direction every three hours, and 92% of the ships were on their mission. True, if the direction was checked every four hours, then the success of navigation dropped sharply: less than two-thirds of the ships reached the place of arrival. G. Horvat, commenting on the results, specifies:

“It is not known whether the Vikings actually used this method. However, if this is true, then they were guided precisely."

Anton Bugaychuk