(Left) The nine principal stones. Above: Cullinans II, I and III. Below: Cullinans VIII, VI, IV, V, VII and IX. (Right) Frederick Wells, the mine manager with the diamond. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
A diamond weighing 2,492 carats It was discovered in a small mine located in BotswanaAfrica. The size of the diamond was large enough to fill the palm of Botswana President Mokgweetsi Masisi. It has also become the second largest diamond ever found. The diamond was unearthed using the latest technology, which could make it easier to find in the future. diamonds of this size.
But more than a century ago, when diamond mining was extremely difficult, the world… The largest diamond It was discovered in 1905 – the Cullinan Diamond.
The gemstone was found near Pretoria in present-day South Africa and is named after the mining company’s president, Thomas Cullinan. The Cullinan diamond originally weighed 3,100 carats and was eventually cut into nine large stones and 97 smaller ones. The largest cut was the “Star of Africa“, which weighs 530 carats. Cutting a diamond of this size in the early 20th century was no easy task, and Asschers of Amsterdam, the leading diamond cutters of the time, took on the task. It took almost eight months to cut it into the desired smaller pieces.
“Following King Edward’s death in 1910, King George V had Cullinan I and II placed on the Sovereign’s Sceptre and Imperial State Crown respectively. Both stones remain part of the Royal Regalia today,” the Royal Collection Trust said.
Asschers kept the other diamonds as payment for his work. “The Cullinan VI and VIII were later acquired privately by King Edward VII as a gift to Queen Alexandra, and the others were acquired by the South African government and presented to Queen Mary in 1910, in memory of the inauguration of the Union. They were bequeathed to Queen Elizabeth II in 1953,” the Royal Collection Trust says.
In 2023, during the coronation of King Charles III on May 6, attention turned to the crown jewels of the British monarchy when it was announced that Camilla, Queen Consort, would not be crowned with the Koh-i-Noor Instead, the Cullinan III, IV and V diamonds were chosen from Queen Elizabeth’s jewellery collection. This simply meant exchanging one colonial feat for another: a petition with thousands of signatures demanding the return of the largest Cullinan diamond to South Africa.
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