Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Iceland spar, possibly the medieval sunstone used to locate the Sun in the sky when clouds obstruct it from view. The sunstone (Icelandic: sólarsteinn) is a type of mineral attested in several 13th–14th-century written sources in Iceland, one of which describes its use to locate the Sun in a completely overcast sky.
It has been speculated that the sunstone (Old Norse: sólarsteinn, a different mineral from the gem-quality sunstone) mentioned in medieval Icelandic texts, such as Rauðúlfs þáttr, was Iceland spar, and that Vikings used its light-polarizing property to tell the direction of the sun on cloudy days for navigational purposes.
Sunstone is a microcline or oligoclase feldspar, which when viewed from certain directions exhibits a spangled appearance. It has been found in Southern Norway , Sweden , various United States localities and on some beaches along the midcoast of South Australia.
An ingenious navigation method is detailed in Viking Navigation Using the Sunstone, Polarized Light and the Horizon Board by Leif K. Karlsen. [27] To derive a course to steer relative to the sun direction, he uses a sun-stone (solarsteinn) made of Iceland spar (optical calcite or silfurberg), and a "horizon-board." The author constructed the ...
Calcite is a carbonate mineral and the most stable polymorph of calcium carbonate (CaCO 3). It is a very common mineral, particularly as a component of limestone. Calcite defines hardness 3 on the Mohs scale of mineral hardness, based on scratch hardness comparison. Large calcite crystals are used in optical equipment, and limestone composed ...
This is an accepted version of this page This is the latest accepted revision, reviewed on 6 February 2025. Period of European history (about 800–1050) Viking Age picture stone, Gotland, Sweden. Part of a series on Scandinavia Countries Denmark Finland Iceland Norway Sweden History History by country Åland Denmark Faroe Islands Finland Greenland Iceland Norway Scotland Sweden Chronological ...
In 2013, researchers from Eötvös University in Hungary argued that the Uunartoq disc could have also been used to determine a traveller's latitude. [13] The researchers pointed to a series of very short inscribed lines stacked atop one another on the disc's north index mark, whereas gnomonic lines by necessity run from west to east across the sun compass's face.
A meadow at Lingsberg.U 240 can be seen in the centre of the picture. It used to form a twin monument with U 241 before it was moved. The Lingsberg Runestones are two 11th-century runestones, [1] listed as U 240 and U 241 in the Rundata catalog, and one fragment, U 242, that are engraved in Old Norse using the younger futhark.