The History & Heritage Behind Golconda Diamonds

Jewellery lovers, historians and curators are well aware of Golconda diamonds and the hype behind them. Today, India is the largest centre for diamond cutting, handling some 90 percent of the world's diamonds. But few people know that India used to be the world's principal producer of diamonds, with Arabs and Persians dominating the trade between India and Europe. In those days, diamonds were valued mostly for their talismanic properties or as carving tools, due to their extreme hardness and for the fact that in those times, it was impossible to cut and polish them into beautiful gems.

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It was during the end of 14th Century that the process of diamond-cutting began in earnest, opening up a whole new market of wearing beautiful diamonds. These gems initially adorned India's ruling families, with men wearing them as a symbol of power. Virtually every diamond came from the Indian mines that were situated on the lower tributaries of Krishna river, some hundreds of kilometres southeast of Golconda.

Golconda Diamonds:

Golconda is a renowned name that is used within the jewellery industry to denote world's finest diamonds that possess superb luminousness, transparency and innate purity. The name also indicates the fact that the diamond is a period gem, that is mined in the ancient diamond fields of Eastern India. The various features of Golconda diamonds are:

• Higher Degree of Transparency: This is a quality that is rarely seen in diamonds of other regions. They have a special whiteness in them that is soft, limpid, watery and pure. It is a rare quality in which light appears to pass through the stone giving the soft appearance.
• Cutting Styles: Since the stones may have been mined many hundred years ago, they have less precise cutting styles that were common prior to this century. Some of the names emphasise limpid transparency that makes Golconda diamonds so special.
• Size & Clarity: These diamonds are large in size and weigh around 7/8th of a carat. The Golconda diamonds have gained popularity since 1880's for their size, weight and clarity
• Graded As Type IIA: This means that the stone is totally void of nitrogen. Nitrogen is the element that gives the diamond its yellowish tinge. Without nitrogen, the stone is able to transmit UV and visible light that other diamonds block. This makes Golconda so incredibly pure and transparent that they actually appear to be two to three shades whiter than any other diamonds.

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