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Sunstone

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The sunstone (Template:lang-is) 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. 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.[1]

Sources

One medieval source in Iceland, "Rauðúlfs þáttr",[2][3] mentions the sunstone as a mineral by means of which the sun could be located in an overcast and snowy sky by holding it up and noting where it emitted, reflected or transmitted light (hvar geislaði úr honum).[4] Sunstones are also mentioned in Hrafns saga Sveinbjarnarsonar (13th century)[5] and in church and monastic inventories (14th–15th century) without discussing their attributes. The sunstone texts of Hrafns saga Sveinbjarnarsonar were copied to all four versions of the medieval hagiography Guðmundar saga góða.[6]

The description in "Rauðúlfs þáttr" of the use of the sunstone is as follows:

Thorsteinn Vilhjalmsson translation:
The weather was thick and snowy as Sigurður had predicted. Then the king summoned Sigurður and Dagur (Rauðúlfur´s sons) to him. The king made people look out and they could nowhere see a clear sky. Then he asked Sigurður to tell where the sun was at that time. He gave a clear assertion. Then the king made them fetch the solar stone and held it up and saw where light radiated from the stone and thus directly verified Sigurður’ s prediction.[7]
In Icelandic:
"Veður var þykkt og drífanda sem Sigurður hafði sagt. Þá lét konungur kalla til sín Sigurð og Dag. Síðan lét konungur sjá út og sá hvergi himin skýlausan. Þá bað hann Sigurð segja hvar sól mundi þá komin. Hann kvað glöggt á. Þá lét konungur taka sólarstein og hélt upp og sá hann hvar geislaði úr steininum og markaði svo beint til sem Sigurður hafði sagt").[8]

Allegorical nature of the medieval texts

Two of the original medieval texts on the sunstone are allegorical. Hrafns saga Sveinbjarnarsonar contains a burst of purely allegorical material associated with Hrafn’s slaying. This involves a celestial vision with three highly cosmological knights, recalling the horsemen of the Apocalypse.[5] It has been suggested that the horsemen of Hrafns saga contain allegorical allusions to the winter solstice and the four elements as an omen of Hrafn’s death, where the sunstone also appears.[9]

"Rauðúlfs þáttr", a tale of Saint Olav, and the only medieval source mentioning how the sunstone was used, is a thoroughly allegorical work.[10] A round and rotating house visited by Olav has been interpreted as a model of the cosmos and the human soul, as well as a prefiguration of the Church.[11][12] The intention of the author was to achieve an apotheosis of St. Olav, through placing him in the symbolic seat of Christ.[10] The house belongs to the genre of of "abodes of the sun," which seemed widespread in medieval literature.[3] St. Olav used the sunstone to confirm the time reckoning skill of his host right after leaving this allegorical house. He held the sunstone up against the snowy and completely overcast sky and noted where light was emitted from it (the Icelandic words used do not make it clear whether the light was reflected by the stone, emitted by it or transmitted through it). It has been suggested that in Rauðúlfs þáttr the sunstone was used as a symbol of the Virgin, following a widespread tradition[13] in which the virgin birth of Christ is compared with glass letting a ray of the sun through.[9][14]

The allegories of the above mentioned texts exploit the symbolic value of the sunstone, but the church and monastic inventories, however, show that something called sunstones did exist as physical objects in Iceland.[15] The presence of the sunstone in "Rauðúlfs þáttr" may be entirely symbolic[16] but its use is described in sufficient detail to show that the idea of using a stone to find the sun's position in overcast conditions was commonplace.[9]

Sunstones for orientation and navigation?

Danish archaeologist Thorkild Ramskou posited that the sunstone could have been one of the minerals (cordierite or Iceland spar) that polarize light and by which the azimuth of the sun can be determined amid a partly overcast sky or when the sun is just below the horizon.[17][18] The principle is used by many animals[19] and was applied during polar flights before more advanced techniques became available.[20] Ramskou’s theory that the sunstone could have aided navigation in the open sea in the Viking period has become very popular,[21] but no extant records of the use of a sunstone for navigation exist in the medieval literature, and used alone, a polarizing mineral only gives the horizontal angle of the sun (azimuth), which is only of marginal value when navigating the open sea.[16] A polarizing crystal would have been useful as a sundial, especially at high latitudes with extended hours of twilight, in mountainous areas or in partly overcast conditions, although only in conjunction with known landmarks; churches and monasteries would have valued such an object as an aid to keep track of the canonical hours.[9]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Ramskou, Thorkild. 1967. Solstenen. Skalk 2: 16–17.
  2. ↑ Turville-Petre, Joan E. (Trans.) (1947). The story of Rauð and his sons. Payne Memorial Series II. Viking Society for Northern Research.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Faulkes, Anthony. 1966. "Rauðúlfs þáttr: A study". Studia Islandica 25. Heimspekideild Háskóla Íslands og Bókaútgáfa Menningarsjóðs. Reykjavík. Template:ISSN
  4. ↑ Sample, Ian."Crystals may have aided Viking sailors". Guardian (Manchester, UK) p. 8. 7 February 2007. Retrieved December 27, 2010. "Tests aboard a research vessel in the Arctic ocean found that certain crystals can be used to reveal the position of the sun, a trick that would have allowed early explorers to ascertain their position and navigate, even if the sky was obscured by cloud or fog."
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Helgadóttir, Guðrún P (ed.). 1987. Hrafns Saga Sveinbjarnarsonar. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 0-19-811162-2.
  6. ↑ Karlsson, Stefán (ed.).1983. Guðmundar sögur biskups I: Ævi Guðmundar biskups, Guðmundar saga A. Editiones Arnamagnæanæ, Series B (6). København: C.A. Reitzels Forlag. ISBN 87-7421-387-3
  7. ↑ Vilhjalmsson, Thorsteinn. 1997. "Time and Travel in Old Norse Society". Disputatio, (II): 89–114.
  8. ↑ Johnsen, Oscar Albert and Jón Helgason (eds.). 1941. Saga Óláfs konungs hins helga. Den store saga om Olav den hellige. Efter pergamenthandskrift i Kungliga Biblioteket i Stockholm nr. 2 4to med varianter fra andre handskrifter. Norsk Historisk Kjeldeskrifts-Institutt. Oslo. Vol. II., 670–1
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 Einarsson, Árni. 2010. Sólarsteinninn: tæki eða tákn. (Summary in English: Sunstone: fact or fiction). Gripla 21 (1) 281–97 Árni Magnússon Institute. Template:issn.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Einarsson, Árni. 1997. "Saint Olaf’s dream house. A medieval cosmological allegory". Skáldskaparmál 4: 179–209, Stafaholt, Reykjavík. Template:issn
  11. ↑ Einarsson, Árni. 2001. The symbolic imagery of Hildegard of Bingen as a key to the allegorical Raudulfs thattr in Iceland. Erudiri Sapientia, Studien zum Mittelalter und zu seiner Rezeptionsgeschichte [Studies on the Middle Ages and its reception history]; II: 377–400. Template:issn
  12. ↑ Loescher, G. 1981. "Rauðúlfs þáttr". Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum und Deutsche Literatur (ZfDA) 110: 253-266. Template:issn
  13. ↑ Breeze, Andrew. 1999. "The blessed virgin and the sunbeam through glass". Celtica 23: 19–29. Template:issn
  14. ↑ Bragason, Úlfar 1988. "The structure and meaning of Hrafns saga Sveinbjarnarsonar". Scandinavian Studies 60: 267–292. Template:issn
  15. ↑ Foote, Peter. G. 1956. Icelandic sólarsteinn and the medieval background. Arv. Tidskrift för Nordisk Folkminnesforskning 12: 26-40.
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 Schnall, Uwe. 1975. Navigation der Wikinger. Nautische Probleme der Wikingerzeit im Spiegel der schriftlichen Quellen. Schriften des Deutschen Schiffahrtsmuseums. Band 6. Oldenburg og Hamburg.196
  17. ↑ Ramskou, Thorkild. 1967. Solstenen. Skalk 2: 16–17.
  18. ↑ Ramskou, Thorkild. 1969. Solstenen â€“ Primitiv Navigation i Norden för Kompasset. Köbenhavn: Rhodos.
  19. ↑ Horváth, Gábor and Dezsö Varjú. 2004. Polarized Light in Animal Vision: Polarization Patterns in Nature. Springer. ISBN 3-540-40457-0
  20. ↑ Moody, Alton B. 1950. "The Pfund Sky Compass". Navigation. 2 (7): 234–239. Template:issn.
  21. ↑ Hegedüs, Ramón, Ã…kesson, Susanne; Wehner, Rüdiger and Horváth, Gábor. 2007. "Could Vikings have navigated under foggy and cloudy conditions by skylight polarization? On the atmospheric optical prerequisites of polarimetric Viking navigation under foggy and cloudy skies". Proc. R. Soc. A 463: 1081–1095. Template:issn.

External links

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