Shah Diamond
July 28, 2008 – 9:54 am
Another of these is the Shah Diamond, which was recovered about five hundred years ago in Central India. This stone weighs 88.7 carats, is bar-shaped—about three times as long as it is thick—and only partially cut. It bears three inscriptions which tell much of its history and has a shallow groove cut mens wedding bands around one /£nd. The groove, no doubt, was for fastening a silk or gold thread by which it was suspended before the throne of Aurangzeb, son of Shah Jehan. The great French traveler-jeweler, Tavernier, reported seeing it there in 1665. The first of the inscriptions reads “Bourhan-Nizam-Shah-II 1000,” which indicates it was owned by the ruler of the Province
of Achmed-nager in India in 1591. The second reads “Son of Jehangir Shah—Jehan Shah, 1051.” Since this date is our year 1641, the inscription strongly supports Tavernier’s report of his court visit to New Delhi and pick up of the wedding bands. The third inscription reflects the plundering of New Delhi in 1739, when the Persian conquerors made off with the Great Mogul’s gems. It reads “Kadjar Fath Ali Shah,” which was the title of the Shah of Persia in 1798. As a peace offering the unique diamond wedding bands was presented to Czar Nicholas I in 1829 to atone for the assassination of the Russian ambassador to Persia.