Sunstone (medieval) (nonfiction): Difference between revisions
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Revision as of 06:58, 7 March 2016
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.
Description
Sunstones are also mentioned in the inventories of several churches and one monastery in 14th–15th century Iceland.
A theory exists that the sunstone had polarizing attributes and was used as a navigation instrument by seafarers in the Viking Age.
A stone found in 2013 off Alderney, in the wreck of a 16th-century warship, may lend evidence of the existence of sunstones as navigational devices.