I never said to my father "I love you" and he never said these words either See, he's from a time when love was not told but shown and a man never spoke what was damn well known

Answer: definitely maybe

if you make a slice of amber, polish it and carve a cross into it, it will show you the direction of the Sun when you hold it towards the sky even in the densest fog, thus giving you direction.

Hope your still making vids. Really enjoy them

Maybe they were not buried with navigators because they were deemed too baluable to bury

A very good audio documentary on the Vikings of Greenland on the Fall of Civilisations channel

Personally, I believe they used the sunstones to navigate the seas and, I'm guessing that they may also have used them to navigate on land. If that's possible anyway. Maybe the sunstones could have been lost or even taken as spoils of battle in the new lands they discovered. Those sunstones could literally be anywhere by now. I love the video clip of the Longship sailing in to New York Harbor. That's just awesome. :D

Excellent video thanks!

If these stones came from Iceland surely it begs the question how did the Vikings navigate to Iceland to find them?

It's crazy that in America if you want real truth or history you have to look at other countries to get the real story. So much of our information is manufactured.

Did Vikings deal with panic attacks? I’m so Interested in the mental health back then

Hello. I'm going to say this just because it deals with this topic directly. There is a TV show in the U.S. called Expedition Unknown. I've watched various episodes and think it is silly at times, but the archaeologist of the show, Josh Gates, had a 2 part set of shows on this. It's been a couple of years ago, but it might be worth it for you to check it out.

Yarmouth Harbor Vicking writing chiseled into a stone at the museum there proves to me the sunstones as it is so foggy there in Nova Scotia Canada you would need one to give the direction of the sun many dark days ! Best Lobster fishing in the world !

Why have calcite crystals rarely been found in excavations? If I were a Viking navigator, the sunstone would travel with me on many voyages, not sit around my dwelling. Since I would pass it on to other navigators, it would journey the oceans until the ship sank -- probably never to be discovered.

If they weren't using these, then perhaps the question is what did they use to navigate then? I believe they used Sunstones to navigate but thats just my opinion. Thanks for sharing brother

But a fair amount of ships from Norway would go to Iceland and then to Greenland, back to Iceland and then on to Norway, trade goods moving from each. So, yes, I do believe it’s possible, but I would expect many trips were not straight to Greenland, goods from Europe to Iceland, good from Iceland to Greenland and furs from Greenland back east.

I think the Icelandic sunstone was used yes. But what about the thousands of years of seafaring before Iceland was discovered? I would presume the technology jump to the clinker built ships (the ones we think of as used by Vikings) was connected in a jump in navigational technology. Are there not any minerals one could use in the mineral rich Scandinavia that could work in the same way? Albeit worse?

This reminds me hell down low amber mostly got grandmothers yellow one so

Just subscribed, after watching a few of your videos. I am curious what do we know about how security was handled in early Scandinavian ("Viking") villages? When guests came did they have to check their spears, shields, axes, swords and knives at the gate? Did some the Hird ("himthiki") turn out and make their presence known, you know, to act as a deterrent? Were weapons kept in a particular structure? Are there any records of deceit, say where one group of guests attacked their hosts? Many Scandinavian villages had no stockade or were open to the sea, a lake or a waterway on one side, so how did they defend their villages?

Thanks

Very interesting. So much is lost with the passing of every generation, especially where books and writing were unknown or limited. Like the African proverb that states, " When an old man dies, a library is burned." In regard to the myths and legends of our Norse ancestors, have you noticed that the archenemy of them and their gods seemed to be mainly "gaints"? Why giants and not evil trolls, or Grendel like demons, whom Beowulf was said to have defeated? Correct me if I am wrong, but did not the Norse account of creation relate that one of their gods killed a "giant", and from his body parts make the earth, sea and sky? Did not our family legends relate something about a great flood, (perhaps composed of blood,) killing all the giants but two? It has been said, that many legends have their basis in fact, and that, truth is stranger than fiction. I am convinced that certain events took place in our human family's past, which caused not only the choosing of giants as the main enemies in our ancient mythology, but also the basis of the legends of many other branches of the human family. Jude, the half Brother of Christ Jesus, wrote in the Bible book that bears his name, about angels that did not keep their original position but forsook their proper dwelling place and are waiting judgement of the great day. Around 1450-1410 BC, Moses wrote about angels who materialized bodies for themselves. They took as wives all whom they chose, producing sons whom some Bible translations called giants, and others called Nephilim, whom the Genesis account calls "the mighty ones of old, the men of fame." Genesis 6:4 Did not the Greeks say that their ancient hero Hercules was the product of a union between a woman and a god? Was he not a man of great strength and fame. These hybrid bullies surely helped to fill the earth with the violence, that God halted with the great flood in the days of our ancestor Noah, which flood has created legends in countless nations and peoples. What a deep impression and fear these violent giants must have created in the minds of Noah's three sons, who grew up at that time. That so many of the legends and myths found around the world today came from common roots, is also seen in the creation account of the ancient Assyrians, that tell of their God Marduk killing a goddess, and from her body making the land, sea and sky. Sounds familiar, does it not?

Vikings believed in the power of the stones and that is why they wore them too.

interesting simulation. however how do they time themselves?

Tak :)

Maybe they shaped the sunstone to a shape to to bend the light in a way they could use

Will there be any new videos soon?

They've proven them to be accurate if fashioned in a certain way. Were they real? Possibly, as they think they found one in a wreck some years ago

[TLDR: (I'm a modern Heathen better to find out now, than later in conversation) What modern material would make a better sunstone than an actual sunstone? Also as a bonus question I threw in: What did Norse people use to cut hair and how did they use it? (Tangent about hair vs hare and Easter) TLDR stands for Too Long, Don't Read... you've been warned.] [Disclaimer] I do actually in fact care very much about whether the Norse people actually used sunstones because I am a Heathen religious reconstructionist and as such, I need to understand any and all verifiable facts about how they lived in order to reconstruct their world view, and spiritual beliefs... so to that end I do care about the evidence for and against the idea that they used sunstones, however that's not relevant to what I'm about to speak on, so I will open by saying 'I don't care weather they actually used them or not', but that 'care' (or lack there of) is context dependent ... you'll see what I mean. I just don't want to be called a liar when it comes up that I do in fact care. [Introduction/Formality] Now with that understanding out of the way, without further adieu; [Contextual Framework] I don't care whether or not thay used sunstones, I live in the Pacific Northwest of the US (a place that is almost always overcast) and as such even given my watch, calander, and cellphone... even with access to hundreds of ways to tell very very accurate time and even with a physical compass and a paper map, even with GPS navigation and Google maps, and a plethora of navigational options, I still find a use, separate from all that for a sunstone... I have a purpose that is not related to time telling and navigation ... I just plain old-fashioned want to know where the sun is... what a guy can't just be curious? Now I can work it out with maths given I can get a pretty precise measure of my time and location but that's too arduous (even as very very simple head-math and counting fingers from the horizon from either solar east or solar west) for me to actually do it more than would be required to get a rough idea of where to aim a sunstone... Also I'll grant that there is Google Sky (what I tend to use currently) ... but I like the security of having non-battery-dependent methods to do things, so that's where my desire to answer the burning question that all this was about, comes from ... [The Main Question] What is the science behind how a sunstone is able to peer through the clouds and reveal the strongest point of light... the source... the sun... ?? (Fractional prism effect understood, it's more than that, I'm asking about the other more subtle effects at play.) Second part of this question is; Do we have a modern material that functions better, ie would plexiglas or real glass that's scratched in an exact pattern such that it's equally as clear/hazy or some other material that could make the same optical effect but better? I know quartz works but not as well, so some materials are better than others... but what's the best material? [Bonus Question] Okay so because of the popularity of the History Channel show "Vikings", everyone and their brother has been obsessed with what Norse haircuts were and weather the show was accurate or not... As such the interwebs is saturated with content surrounding this. Such that my question in Google query form, gets all relevant results drowneded out by much more popular content. Thus I can't seem to find the answer to how did the Norseman cut their hair? As in not the haircut, but the actual cutting of strands of hair... Did they use the same knife as they cut food with, and just wash it inbtween, because knives where expensive enough that having dedicated knives was cost prohibitive? Or did they smith deticated tools such as (but different from) shears and straight razors as we do today? If so, would those be a household item, or something households wouldn't afford, thus they only go to a village barber-guild or and individual village barber or something?? I'm just wanting to know HOW exactly they cut hair. (Not hare/hær, that's obvious they'd use a hunting knife but I understand they may have had a negative connotation associated with bunnies outside of spring celebrations.) [Random Easter Tangent] Spring celebrations are a debated topic in the community as we have very few sources and questionable sources at that... some say they celebrated Freyr and/or Freyja some say it was Ēostre (also spelled/called Ostara) but we have very little evidence either way at this time. We can't even verify if they even knew of Ēostre. However it is the original story of Easter, and it is definitely a pagan and not a Christian story. We have a Christian monk's writings admitting that the church had stolen the holiday from the Norse pagans... Now what's the motivation in admitting that if it's untrue? The motive appears to me to be to tell other Christian leaders that this method of adopting holidays seems to be working to make converting people easier... based on the translation of the letter that I read. But enough tangent about a joke based on hair vs hare, and Ēostre's Bunny aka the Easter Bunny... And with that, I'll leave it here.

anyone have any good sources?

Boost: what did y have for lunch?

I’m here for a little escape from reality. Thanks