Sunstones (March 5)

One of the stories from ancient Norway speaks of the existence of a magical glowing stone called the “sunstone.” It was believed that these fabled sunstones aided mariners when the days were so cloudy that the sun was obscured. Vikings write of using these prized sunstones to navigate the perilous Arctic seas. It turns out that sunstone stories are true, there is a transparent spar crystal found in Iceland that creates a double refraction or image. (You can see this for yourself by placing an Iceland spar crystal on a newspaper and seeing a double image appear).

Vikings would mount this crystal of Iceland spar into a wooden block and rotate the block until the two fuzzy images of the sun equalized; from that position, the Vikings could determine the sun’s exact position without a visible sun. Knowing the sun’s location allows sailors to calculate their exact latitude upon the globe. The ancient Vikings were one of the dispersing clans from the Tower of Babel as the Viking civilization is amongst the earliest of European settlers. As one of the earliest human cultures, were they unsophisticated, primitive humans? No, the very opposite is true. They developed advanced technologies needed to survive in the harsh post-Flood world and sailed the globe in search of new resources.

Genesis 7:11

KJV: In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.

NIV: Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

Reference

Bell, Philip. 2013. “Sunstones and Viking Magic”. Creation, 35(4) 50-51.

Learn More

Sunstones and Viking ‘magic’