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Early Vikings Use of Calcite Show on Travel Channel this 2/12/15


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Let me preface this post by saying there will be a show on the Travel this Thursday 2/12/15 at 9/8central. The show's focus will be on the Viking Sunstone,(calcite) how it was used, etc. With the now popular t.v. show about the Vikings, this show should shed a little light on how the stone was used, and how it was developed as a navigational aid. This is all supposition on my part, as all I have seen on the presentation, is a short few seconds of a preview...

Below is essentially a rehashing of a post I made a while back on celestial navigation, on another forum:

I have always been interested in celestial navigation for a very long time. One of my heavy construction partners I worked with, had been a sea captain on an oil tanker, according to him, his ship was the first to pass through the Suez Canal after WW2, his destination being his home port at New Orleans, Louisiana, to offload its cargo of middle east crude oil.
This old weathered hard working, hard drinking, heavy construction carpenter was always surprising me, by how much he knew about mathematics, calculating angles for complicated concrete forms, etc.

He would tell me about all his experiences about coming "around the horn" down at the bottom of Africa, just for starters. He told me he had utilized a sextant by which to chart his ships courses. A sextant is a pretty ancient tool by which folks eons ago could use the sun and stars by which to navigate the seas of the world, and as his function as the ships captain, he needed to know how to use the sextant in order that he could accurately and safely guide his huge ship across the worlds great oceans to his home port.

Back then, and still to this day, the knowledge of celestial navigation was a must for being able to navigate around the world, without the aid of modern communications, radar, and GPS, and all that gee whiz stuff. The need for this ancient method of navigation has not changed, as one of my friends who had become a navigator on a C-130 transport aircraft, told me one of his most difficult requirements to become an aircraft navigator,was that he had to learn to utilize a hand held sextant while in flight, in the event the aircraft navigation instruments quit working. He did, finally...

I eventually wound up with an old brass Leupold sextant, made in Portland Oregon, which I purchased from a retired professor of oceanography at one of the Oregon universities. Nope, I never have learned anything about the thing, but it is cool to look at.

What this is all leading up to, is an article I found about celestial navigation, which is especially interesting, as it talks about how the early Norse seafarers in open boats, were able to utilize this stone, calcite, as an aid to navigate across thousands of miles of open water.
 
Here is a link that will tell you all about the wonders of calcite...
http://www.nordskip....ss.html#karlsen   NOTE:  If this link does not work here for some reason, cut and paste into GOOGLE and look for links that will have my handle mentioned as to calcite/sunstone.  I don't know why this particular link is reluctant to open here, I do know it is a viable working website...  Maybe there is something I did wrong in the post, but my link below seems to work here...
 
There are lots of things to read about on this website below.
It tells you about the almost magical properties of calcite.
And, to those old Norsemen, it WAS magical.
http://www.nordskip.com/navnotes.pdf

Thanks for looking!

Gary/Largo

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Gary, I too enjoy this kind of stuff. But remember, the key tool to being able to use the sextant was the invention of the Chronometer, a great story in itself. It finally allowed accurate Longitude positioning

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Largo; Thanks for the link  I don't  (won't) have a television so I'm always looking for fascinating history. I heard a rumor that the GPZ 7000 has a built in sextant. Just finished reading Capt. cooks  biography. Accurate chronometers were priceless.

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Hi Steve,

There is and interesting story called: The Diary of Jules De Foe.

Basically it is about my area of Idaho, way back when.

Here is a link in the interest of time: http://idahomojo.com/random-info/the-diary-of-jules-de-foe/

I have a paper back book about the story. What is interesting is this guy Defoe tells specific numerical compass readings about his wanderings in Indian country. I don't know how folks back in the trapping era or any other era could travel by using a compass. I can find those very locations hereabouts, and really lend credence to his fascinating journey...

Gary

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