That supposed 'Viking sunstone' find had me rolling my eyes at first

I remember when the news broke about that crystal found in a shipwreck off the coast of Alderney back in 2013. Everyone in this forum was going nuts saying it was proof the Vikings used special rocks for navigation. I thought it was just another case of people reading too much into a chunk of calcite. But then I actually looked up the experiments they did with it, where they tested it against actual sky conditions and got within a few degrees of the sun's position. And then another team found a similar crystal in a different wreck a few years later, which made me shut up pretty quick. Still, I wonder how reliable it really was on a cloudy day in the North Atlantic. Has anyone here tried replicating those tests themselves with a replica stone?

3 comments

3 Comments

hugo_robinson2529d agoTop Commenter

Oh I tried making my own with a piece of calcite I bought off eBay once, ended up just confirming I can't tell time even with modern technology.

the_amy29d ago

Calling it "proof" is a big stretch, you're still just staring at a regular rock and guessing. If those experiments were so solid, we'd have actual Viking navigators showing up to outdoor weddings instead of GPS. Curious if @carr.lee’s gift shop stone can do that trick in a real storm, because a single calm test doesn't mean much.

carr.lee29d ago

Funny you mention eBay, Hugo_robinson25, because I actually grabbed one of those replica stones from a history museum gift shop a couple years back. Tried it out on a partly cloudy afternoon near my shop and I think I got within maybe 10 degrees of where the sun actually was, which felt like a win. Then I tried it on a totally overcast day and just ended up staring at the fog like an idiot. The trick is you have to hold it just right to see that double image thing, and my hands were too shaky from coffee.