Norse code: How Vikings used 'sunstones' to navigate while crossing the high seas through heavy fog and cloud from Norway to Greenland
- Vikings made 'sunstones' which picked up polarised light to reveal sun's location
- They would work with up to 100 per cent accuracy from Norway to Greenland
- A sunstone is crystal with a peculiar molecular structure which splits light in two
- Physicists from Hungarian university tried 1,000 trips with computer simulation
Attendees of the Up Helly Aa Viking festival on the Shetland Isles. A study by physicists in Hungary has shown the Vikings came up with a highly effective solution for crossing the high seas on their longboats
They are mostly remembered for raping and pillaging. But their formidable navigation skills are also renowned.
Now a study has shown the Vikings came up with a highly effective solution for crossing the high seas on their longboats.
In the time before magnetic compasses, it was extremely hard to navigate by the sun when it disappeared behind heavy fog and cloud.
It is believed the Vikings’ solution was to create ‘sunstones’ which picked up polarised light to reveal the sun’s location.
A study has now found these fabled sunstones would in fact work with up to 100 per cent accuracy in the three-week voyage from Norway to Greenland.
Physicists from Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary tried out 1,000 of these trips with a computer simulation they describe as the most detailed and precise method available without setting off to ‘the high seas’.
The study, published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, states that sunstones are ‘surprisingly successful’ even under cloudy conditions.
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The authors write: ‘This explains why the Vikings could rule the Atlantic Ocean for 300 years and could reach North America without a magnetic compass.’
Between AD 900 and AD 1200 the Vikings were the dominant seafarers of the North Atlantic. When the sun was shining, they could determine geographical north using a special sundial.
But it was unknown how they could find their way in cloudy and foggy conditions, until the theory of the sun stones arose in 1967.
A sunstone is a crystal with a peculiar molecular structure, which splits the light passing through it in two. Rotating the crystal eventually lines up the two beams of light into one straight line, which can then be used to detect the sun’s position even in overcast weather
This suggested the Vikings could use skylight polarisation to find their way, just like some insects.
A sunstone is a crystal with a peculiar molecular structure, which splits the light passing through it in two.
Rotating the crystal eventually lines up the two beams of light into one straight line, which can then be used to detect the sun’s position even in overcast weather.
A suspected sunstone was found in 2002 deep in the waters off Alderney, the third largest of the Channel islands.
Hungarian researchers had previously tried out 1,080 different celestial scenarios, based on the cloud cover and sun’s position, to find how far a longboat would be from true north at any time.
Those findings were used in the new study to work out the chances of making it from modern-day Bergen in Norway to the Viking settlement of Hvarf in south Greenland.
Men dressed as Vikings parade through Edinburgh during Hogmanay in 2013. Between AD 900 and AD 1200 the Vikings were the dominant seafarers of the North Atlantic
The results show top success rates of between 92.2 per cent and 100 per cent during spring equinox and summer solstice if a navigator checked the sailing direction every three hours.
The ‘water sapphire’, or cordierite, which is an type of blue mineral, was the best type of sunstone.
The authors accept that they did not include the possibility of strong winds or storms in their calculations, but say if Vikings did use sunstones their results show they could have used them to navigate ‘precisely’.
To highlight why navigation was so vital, the paper concludes: ‘In cases when the sailing routes tended considerably southwards, Viking voyages never reached Greenland, but terminated with death of the whole crew in the Atlantic Ocean, or reached North America (now Canada).
‘The latter might have resulted in the accidental discovery of America by the Vikings much earlier than Columbus.’
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