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Faroe 413 was issued in 2002 to commemorate
Viking voyages on the North Atlantic. There are two cartophilatelic
items on the souvenir sheet, the map and the sun compass.
The map is a portion of the Skalholt map by
Sigardur Stefansson of Iceland in 1579,
based on a copy by Bishop Thordur Thorlaksson
around 1669.
The "sun compass" is in the stamp on the left. The
instrument is based on a partial disk found in Greenland in 1948 by C.
L. Vebęk of Denmark. The device is held with the disk parallel to the
ground. It is rotated until the tip of the sun's shadow falls on a curve
marked on
the disk; the pointer then points North. (For a more detailed
explanation click
here.)
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