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Sorting through the treasures of an Elizabethan warship sunken in 1592 might be on everyone's bucket list, but for scientists, it is a perk of the job. The warship, found within the deep waters near the third largest island of the Channel Islands, Alderney, in 2002 contained several artifacts that included armor, cannons and muskets. But one particular item that has been quietly sitting in the museum was recently discovered to have been one of the more important items used by these Vikings. Although it looks like a crystallized bar of soap, the opaque block of stone could have been a vital navigational device.

The crystal known as the Icelandic spar, which has been scratched and dull over the past hundreds of years, was speculated to have possibly been a sunstone. Sunstones are believed to be able to locate the sun's position despite being hidden under clouds or fog, and have been believed to be a legendary item that was never discovered. The new claims regarding this museum artifact would make this item the first sunstone ever found in history. Due to the fact that the item cannot necessarily be proven to be a sunstone will force people to have to decide whether or not the current evidence supporting this case is substantial. The people behind this recent discovery of the sunstone are considered to be respected physicists from the University of Rennes in Brittany, France.

These physicists decided to study the artifact as a part of their larger research into how Vikings navigated successfully around the world before the invention of the magnetic compass. After mapping out the Vikings' road of conquests, the physicists were astonished at the Vikings' dexterity in moving from one location to the next without getting lost. Although they knew that Vikings commonly used wildlife to guide them, such as the observation of birds, the researchers stated that even small errors would have severely delayed their journeys between different regions of the world, which led the physicists to believe that the Vikings must have had more navigational tools than just their eyes. 

The physicists based their claims on the fact that the Vikings navigated successfully on days where there was no sun, and based on literature about sunstones, the physicists believed that they have discovered the first one. After studying the crystal, the physicists noted that the molecular structure allowed light to pass through and split into two beams, and when the crystal was rotated until the two beams became one, it would inform the Vikings where the sun was located.  Although this technique with the crystal could have been used, researchers today still have nothing else to compare the Icelandic spar to, forcing the researchers to rely heavily on whatever available evidence exists. If the Icelandic spar is in fact a sunstone, it would explain how the Vikings were successfully in pillaging numerous areas within the world.

The findings will be published in the Proceedings Of The Royal Society.