Scientists in France believe that they have found a sunstone. What was thought to be a mythical device used by Vikings may actually exist.
The research team out of France's University of Rennes was examining a British ship wreck that sunk in the English Channel in 1592 when they discovered the crystal. Divers found it next to a pair of dividers, hinting that it was used for navigating purposes.
The existence of the oblong-shaped small crystal "sunstone" may help to explain how Vikings navigated the vastness of the sea. Before the invention of the magnetic compass, scientists suggest that the crystal helped locate the Sun with the naked eye even on the cloudiest of days.
As the BBC reports, the crystal was identified as a calcite that diffracts light into two separate rays. Scientists put a similar crystal to the test, an Iceland spar, and showed that rotating it just right revealed the two beams and indicated the Sun's direction. They confirmed that it worked not only on cloudy days, but also at sunset.
"It permits the observer to follow the azimuth of the sun, far below the horizon with an accuracy as great as plus or minus one degree. The evolution of the Alderney crystal lends hope for identifying other calcite crystals in Viking shipwrecks, burials or settlements," said Dr. Guy Ropars of the University of France, who led the study.
The Viking period dates back to the ninth and tenth centuries. They were Scandinavian explorers who lived and worked at sea. They were excellent nautical navigators and conquered parts of Europe, Greenland, Iceland, Russia and North America. Iceland legend details a "magical gem" that would reveal the sun's position of the sun at any time of the day or night.
The British vessel that the Iceland spar was found on was from a later time period. Scientists theorize that the use of sunstones was practiced for many centuries. The compass, introduced in Europe in the 13th Century, was not too reliable so the crystal was used as a back-up just in case. The study was published in the journal, Proceedings of the Royal Society.
