Diamonds

Diamond History

The name diamond is derived from the ancient Greek αδ?μα? (adámas), meaning invincible, indestructible.

The earliest diamonds were found in India in 4th century BC, although the youngest of these deposits were formed 900 million years ago. A majority of these early stones were transported along the network of trade routes that connected India and China, commonly known as the Silk Road. At the time of their discovery, diamonds were valued because of their strength and brilliance, and for their ability to refract light and engrave metal.

Diamond is a stone of exceptional power and miraculous abilities, it is believed to fill negative spaces in oneself with positivism. Diamonds have long been worn as adornments, used as cutting tools, served as a talisman to ward off evil, and were believed to provide protection in battle. In the Dark Ages, they were also used as a medical aid and were thought to cure illness and heal wounds when ingested.

Surprisingly, diamonds share some common characteristics with coal. Both are composed of the most common substance on earth: carbon. What makes diamonds different from coal is the way the carbon atoms are arranged and how the carbon is formed. Diamonds are created when carbon is subjected to the extremely high pressures and temperatures found at the earth’s lithosphere, which lies approximately 90-240 miles below the earth’s surface.

Until the 18th century, India was thought to be the only source of diamonds. When the Indian diamond mines were depleted, the quest for alternate sources began. Although a small deposit was found in Brazil in 1725, the supply was not enough to meet world demands.

In 1866, 15-year-old Erasmus Jacobs was exploring the banks of the Orange River when he came across what he thought was an ordinary pebble, but turned out to be a 21.25-carat diamond. In 1871, a colossal 83.50-carat deposit was unearthed on a shallow hill called Colesberg Kopje. These findings sparked a rush of thousands of diamond prospectors to the region and led to the opening of the first large-scale mining operation which came to be known as the Kimberly Mine. This newly discovered diamond source increased the world’s diamond supply substantially, resulting in a significant decrease in their value. The elite no longer considered the diamond a rarity, and began to replace this “common” stone with colored gemstones. Emeralds, rubies, and sapphires became more popular choices for engagement ring stones among the upper class.

In 1880, Englishman Cecil John Rhodes formed DeBeers Consolidated Mines, Ltd in an effort to control the diamond supply. Although DeBeers was successful in their efforts to control the supply of diamonds, demand for the stone was weak. By 1919, diamonds were devalued by nearly 50%.

Top 5 Most Famous Diamonds Most Amazing View "The Shah Diamond, The Hortensia Diamond, The Eureka Diamond, The Dresden Green Diamond, The Hope Diamond" Diamonds are fascinating and by their very nature can be mesmerizing, especially if they are larger than your typical diamonds or have a history to them. These 5 famous diamonds have both "facets" and retain their place in diamond lore to this very day.

The Shah Diamond

The Shah diamond was discovered in India around 1450, and it has become a potent symbol of the royalty, war, and history of India from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This diamond weighs 88.7 carats, and it is known for its crystalline clarity. The yellow diamond was seized, lost, and reclaimed by three different Shahs during ancient times, and it retains the inscriptions that they left there over time. One Shah, Jehan, chose a telling description of himself to be engraved upon the diamond: "ruler of the world". However, he would eventually lose the diamond as it was seized by another Shah. After the murder of a Russian member of the diplomatic corps in 1829, the reigning Shah offered the diamond to the Kremlin, as a way of pacifying them and ensuring no violent retribution towards him by the Soviet Union. In this manner, the ownership of the Shah diamond was lost to India forever.

The Hortensia Diamond

This famous diamond has a Napoleonic connection. It was named for Hortense, the daughter of the Empress Josephine. Hortense was also the step-daughter of Napoleon Bonaparte. The Hortensia is twenty carats in size, with a pale coral cast. This diamond disappeared, along with other French Crown Jewels, during the theft that took place in 1792. It was later recovered, along with the others, only to be stolen again in 1830. After the theft, the diamond was rapidly located and returned to its rightful owner. This diamond has a crack along its pavilion, unlike the other diamonds on our list. However, it is so steeped in French history and Napoleonic legend, that it retains its pricelessness despite the flaw. The stone now rests in the Louvre, a glittering symbol of France and of the courage of Napoleon, with whom it will always be linked.

The Eureka Diamond

This Eureka diamond was the first ever discovered in South Africa, one of the world’s most prolific sources of diamonds. The diamond was found by a young boy, while he worked as a shepherd, along the shores of Hopetown’s Orange River. This diamond weighed in at 231 carats before being faceted. The Eureka diamond eventually travelled to England for the inspection of Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle. This famous diamond, like many on our list, was destined to change owners many time, before being purchased by the diamond conglomerate, De Beers, in 1967; it is now on permanent display at the Kimberly Museum in South Africa, where it remains a symbol of one of South Africa’s most lucrative national resources.

The Dresden Green Diamond

This extraordinary and rare pear-shaped stone weighs in at 40.7- carats, and is named for the capital of Saxony: its unique, deep-green color sets it apart. The Dresden Green came from India, and it was sold to Frederick Augustus II, son of the ruler of Saxony, Frederick Augustus I. Known as Augustus the Strong, Frederick’s father commissioned the construction of many fine buildings in Dresden, and filled them with all manner of glorious art treasures he collected from around the world. Although Frederick Augustus I admired the diamond for years beforehand, Frederick Augustus II was the first to actually own it. The Dresden continued to be passed through royal ownership and admired for its flawless, emerald-green hue. It currently rests in the Albertinium Museum in Dresden: it was once displayed alongside the Hope Diamond at the Smithsonian Museum, at the request of noted jeweller Harry Winston, who felt that the Dresden was the only other stone in the world that could hold a candle to the Hope Diamond.

The Hope Diamond

No diamond remains more notorious and more renowned than the infamous Hope Diamond, which is surrounded by legend and history. Some believed that this huge, deep-blue diamond, which came from India, was cursed and would bring bad luck or even death to its wearer.

The first famous owner of the Hope Diamond was Louis XVI, the King of France. He bought the diamond from a French gem merchant, and its initial size was a staggering 112 3/16 carats. Louis chose to have the stone cut down to 67 1/8 carats, for use in the French Crown Jewels.

Its second owner was the next King of France, Louis XV, who reset the diamond in another royal jewelry piece, the Emblem of the Golden Fleece. During the French Revolution, the diamond was stolen during the looting and it did not surface again for 20 years. In 1812, the diamond reappeared in England under mysterious circumstances, and was snapped up by a wealthy collector, Philip Henry Hope. It remained in his family until it was sold again, and for years afterward, the Hope Diamond bounced back and forth between collectors.

Evelyn Walsh Mclean purchased the diamond in 1912: again, it was reduced and re-cut, this time to 45.52 carats, to suit Walsh’s taste. She relished tales of the Hope Diamond curse, even thought they were unfounded, as it pleased her to own such a notorious gem. She was rumored to keep the stone within the cushions of her sofa as a hiding place.

After her passing, the famed jeweller Harry Winston bought the Hope Diamond and donated it to the Smithsonian Museum, and, from its origins deep with the earth of India, over a billion years ago, it now belongs to the American people.

A Modern-Day Resurgence

In 1947, DeBeers commissioned the services of leading advertising agency N.W. Ayer, and the slogan “A diamond is forever” was coined. The premise of this large-scale marketing campaign was the suggestion that diamonds should be the only choice for engagement rings. The DeBeers advertising campaign was wildly successful, and was a contributing factor to today’s widespread embracing of the tradition of diamond engagement rings. In today’s fine jewellery market, more than 78% of engagement rings sold contain diamonds.

With the surge in popularity of the precious stone, many companies and organizations began campaigns to educate jewellers and consumers about what to look for when selecting a diamond. As jewellers experimented with ways to enhance the diamond’s visual appeal and presentation, new cutting techniques were adopted to help increase the stone’s brilliance. Over time, several prominent shapes emerged as the most popular varieties, including round, oval, marquise, square (princess), and rectangular (emerald).

Today, the world’s diamond deposits are slowly becoming depleted. Less than 20% of the diamonds mined are of gem quality; less than 2% are considered “investment diamonds.” 75-80% of mined diamonds are used for industrial applications, such as grinding, sawing, and drilling. Typically, more than 250 tons of ore must be mined in order to produce a one-carat, gem-quality stone.

To some "Diamonds Are Not Forever if We Understand its Nature and Structure"

Scientifically, diamonds are metastable allotrope of carbon, where the carbon atoms are arranged in a variation of the face-centered cubic crystal structure called a diamond lattice. In other words diamonds are just the result of the formation of carbon atoms which are subjected to high temperature and high pressure through time. Diamonds on the other hand are just bonds of carbon atoms which are arranged in a tetrahedral lattice structure. This technically means that diamonds are just composed of carbons.

In fact this was proven way back 1772 when a French scientist Antoine Lavoisier found out that concentrating sunlight with the use of lens into a diamond in an atmosphere of oxygen will produce carbon dioxide as the only product of combustion. An English chemist named Smithson Tennant had verified this by repeating this experiment on 1797 by burning diamond and graphite. Therefore diamond is one of the most common mineral in earth since carbon is the most abundant element in the planet.

Let’s take graphite for example, which is another allotrope of carbon, if we subject graphite at high temperature and at high pressure at the same, the resulting material is probably diamond. Therefore graphite, coal and diamonds are just made out of the same chemical element which is individually arranged to form different crystal structures. However, the properties of each material are of not in great difference. The only special thing about diamond is its hardness due to its strongly bonded carbon atoms which are arranged evenly in all directions.

On 2014, a team of researcher which was led by SLAC scientist has tried to uncover scientific methodology to understand and control the structural transition of a material which is primarily composed of carbon to form another mineral with the same chemical component. In their experiment, they discovered that:

Hydrogen binding initiated a domino effect, with structural changes propagating from the sample's surface through all the carbon layers underneath, turning the initial graphite-like structure of planar carbon sheets into an arrangement of carbon atoms that resembles diamond.

You can read the citation of the research here. Technically, it needs very high pressure to turn graphite in to diamond given the fact that graphite is the most stable form of carbon. But one should not misunderstood diamond to be formed from compressed coal but rather, more likely from sedimentary carbonated rocks and organic carbon deposit.

There’s no doubt that diamonds are the hardest known material so far and are one of the greatest conductors of heat due to its highly compacted structure of atoms. It has a specific gravity of about 3.53 or a density of 3.53 grams per cubic centimetres. Diamond is categorized in the number 10 spot at Mohs scale and is almost 4 times harder than corundum which is number 9 on the same scale. Moreover, due to its formation at high temperature, diamonds have very high melting point.

However, diamonds are not forever, huge amount of force when applied at certain point or spot of a diamond can fracture it. Synthetic diamonds and diamond-like materials for industrial purposes are also being manufactured and are being produced in laboratories today.

Still the allure of a sparkling diamond holds too much energy over most to resist!

Food for thought!