a bitter and bloody history. Men have gouged out eyes, hacked off genitals, poured molten lead on heads, poisoned, bludgeoned, stabbed and shot each other in pursuit of this diamond.Translated from Persian, the word Koh-i-Noor means “Mountain of Light” – ironic since its history is infused with such darkness.
Named for its colossal size, the stone was originally 186 carats, and the size and heft of a hen’s egg. To put that into some context, in 2013 another diamond of Indian origin, the Princie, at 34.65 carats, was auctioned at Christie’s for $39.3 million.
It was bought by the Qatari royal family.Until the discovery of diamond mines in Brazil in 1725, all of the world’s diamonds came from India.
Really ancient stones, like the Koh-i-Noor, were alluvial, coughed up by the earth through soft riverbed silt. We cannot be sure when exactly it surfaced, but Indian folklore often conflates the diamond with a mythical stone of ancient Hindu scripture.
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