The boy was only 10 years old. From there, the diamond became a special possession of Queen Victoria. It was displayed at the Great Exposition in London, only for the British public to be dismayed at how simple it was.
The diamond came to its current place of honor in , at the front of the crown worn by the Queen Mother, wife of George VI and mother of Elizabeth II. The crown made its last public appearance in , resting atop of the coffin of the Queen Mother for her funeral. Still shrouded in myth and mystery including a rumor that the diamond is cursed one thing is clear when it comes to the Koh-i-Noor: it sparks plenty of controversy.
What is the moral distinction between stuff taken by force in colonial times? For Anand, the issue is even more personal. Born and raised in the UK, her family is Indian and her relatives regularly visited. It is now displayed at the National Museum of Natural History, having been donated by Harry Winston, who legally purchased it. He and Dalrymple both point out that the rulers who once owned these gemstones headed nations that no longer exist.
But returning pillaged art and treasure from World War II, as complicated as that can be, is still far less complex than unraveling colonial history. By the time you hit the second or third owner over time, the information can get more difficult to research.
Perhaps equally controversial are the Elgin Marbles , statues carved 2, years ago and taken from the Parthenon in Athens by British Lord Elgin in the early s. So far, the UK has retained ownership of the statues and the diamond, regardless of calls for their return.
People are taught this was a gift from India to Britain. I would like the correct history to be put by the diamond. Dalrymple agrees that disseminating the true history is half the battle. Anand and Dalrymple only hope that their work will do some good by clarifying the true path the infamous gemstone followed—and helping leaders come to their own conclusions about what to do with it next. Lorraine Boissoneault is a contributing writer to SmithsonianMag. The diamond then kept switching ownership of the succeeding rulers of the Delhi Sultanate.
In Babur defeated Ibrahim Lodi, from whom he acquired the diamond. Babur mentions the diamond in his memoir, the Baburnama. The Persian monarch, Nadir Shah invaded the Mughal empire in and therein obtained the diamond. Nadir Shah was assassinated in and his empire disintegrated. After his death, the Kohinoor came into the acquisition of one of his generals, Ahmad Shah Durrani. One of his descendents, Shah Shuja Durrani gave the diamond to Ranjit Singh of Punjab, who in return helped Durrani win back the throne of Afghanistan.
In , the British conquered Punjab and the Lahore treaty was proclaimed. One term in the treaty stated that:. Ownership of the gem is an emotional issue for many Indians, who believe it was stolen from them by the British. Here the authors write about the main myths surrounding the priceless gem:.
After the Koh-i-Noor came into the hands of the Governor-General Lord Dalhousie in , he prepared to have it sent, along with an official history of the stone, to Queen Victoria.
Dalhousie commissioned Theo Metcalfe, a junior assistant magistrate in Delhi with a taste for gambling and parties, to undertake some research on the gem. But Metcalfe accumulated little more than colourful bazaar gossip that has since been repeated in article after article, book after book, and even sits unchallenged on Wikipedia today as the true history of the Koh-i-Noor. Below are six of the main "myths" taken on in the book:. Reality: The Koh-i-Noor, which weighed All three diamonds left India as part of Iranian ruler Nader Shah's loot after he invaded the country in It was only in the early 19th Century, when the Koh-i-Noor reached the Punjab, that the diamond began to achieve its preeminent fame and celebrity.
Reality: The original uncut Koh-i-Noor was flawed at its very heart. Yellow flecks ran through a plane at its centre, one of which was large and marred its ability to refract light. That's why Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, was so keen that it be re-cut.
The Koh-i-Noor is also far from being the largest diamond in the world: it's only the 90th largest. In fact, tourists who see it in the Tower of London are often surprised by how small it is, especially when compared to the two much larger Cullinan diamonds that are displayed near it.
Reality: It is impossible to know when the Koh-i-Noor was found, or where. That's what makes it such a mysterious stone.
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