How did Norse sailors cross the North Atlantic centuries before modern navigation instruments?
In 1948, archaeologists in Greenland discovered a small fragment of a carved wooden disc at the Norse site of Uunartoq. Some researchers have proposed that it may have been part of a sun compass, using the Sun and its shadow to help determine direction.
If that interpretation is correct, an instrument like this could have assisted Norse sailors during their remarkable voyages across the North Atlantic.
But there is an important mystery: its exact purpose is still debated, and archaeologists cannot say with certainty that the Uunartoq disc was actually a navigation instrument.
So was this strange wooden object really part of a Viking navigation system — or was it something entirely different?
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