The History Of Diamonds Part 1

It’s only in the last sixty years that diamonds have become the most powerful symbol of romantic love. But their imprint on history goes back far beyond this recent phenomenon.

Diamonds have existed for nearly as long as the earth itself. In 2007, scientists found examples in the Jack Hills region of Western Australia that they estimate are more than four billion years old.

The first historical record dates back roughly three thousand years to the Golconda region of India, where diamonds were discovered in riverbeds. These alluvial stones were the result of volcanic activity, caused by tectonic plates colliding near the Himalayas.

Diamonds in this era weren’t cut and polished to reveal their full brilliance. Instead, uncut stones were placed in royal crowns and in the armour of kings and other warriors. As well as serving a decorative purpose, it was widely thought that diamonds offered protection to those who wore them.

These mystical stones were also supposed to have medicinal properties. During the Dark Ages, St Hildegarde claimed that holding a diamond while making the sign of the cross would heal wounds and cure diseases. In 1532, Pope Clement VII tried to cure his own illness by swallowing diamonds – unsuccessfully.

During Biblical times, Sephardic Jews had become involved in the diamond trade for people doing things like bespoke engagement rings and bespoke jewellery . The high value to bulk ratio of these stones made them ideal for people who needed to transport their wealth across the ancient world without drawing attention to themselves. In the sixteenth century, many of them settled in what is now Belgium, and Antwerp is still the centre of the global diamond industry.

But the source of nearly all the world’s diamonds remained India. For many years, these stones travelled west to Europe via the ‘Silk Road’ across central Asia. Then in 1498, Portuguese navigator Vasco Da Gama discovered a sea route to India via the Cape of Good Hope, and within a few years a permanent Portuguese outpost had sprung up in Goa.

Gradually, the supply of stones from India dried up, though not before it had produced some of the most famous diamonds in history, including the Koh-I-Noor and the Blue Hope. In the eighteenth century, as India’s sources were nearing exhaustion, alluvial gold miners in Brazil discovered a completely new supply.

Although the Brazilian diamond strike wasn’t particularly rich, it remained the world’s primary source of diamonds for over a century. But in the winter of 1866-7, fifteen-year-old Erasmus Jacobs found a transparent stone on his father’s farm on the south bank of the Orange River, in present-day South Africa.

His find trigged the greatest diamond rush in history. Over the following fifteen years, South Africa produced more diamonds than India had in over two millennia. The diamond trade had entered the modern era.