Since time immemorial, Natural Diamonds have been associated with royalty and aristocracy. They are one of the most precious gems held close to their hearts by people worldwide.
But have you ever wondered how humans discover these glamorous pieces of stones?
The easy answer to this question is "mining." Like every other precious element, diamonds too are excavated from the earth's surface employing mining.
However, just like the gems themselves, their mining also has a very interesting history.
Believed to have started somewhere around the 4th century BCE in India. Every continent in the world today is mining diamonds. And each one of them has a uniquely fascinating story of its own.
So without further ado, let’s dive into it.
The word “mining” might sound like a recent phenomenon. Something born from the European Industrial revolution, but that’s not true.
Humans have been mining for extracting precious metals long before the inception of the Industrial revolution. The methods applied at that time, however, were simpler and more manageable. Especially in comparison to the ones used today.
The mining of diamonds in ancient India falls in the simpler category.
Diamond mining in Ancient India
It doesn’t come as a surprise that India was the pioneer in mining Diamonds, considering that the Indus Valley civilization is one of the oldest civilizations on our planet.
Indians have been mining diamonds since the 4th Century BCE.
According to the ancient texts of that time, like Arthashastra by Kautilya, the prestigious stones, were washed ashore by water bodied like rivers and lakes. Later, people recognized these stones as precious diamonds.
The Indians employed the alluvial mining method to excavate the rough diamonds from the mud, stones, and other underwater elements. Royalties later used these diamonds to make jewels.
Such was the proficiency of Indians in mining that they came up with their own system of grading the gems. A Sanskrit scripture named Ratna Parikshan taught the science of testing gemstones.
History credits the Macedonian king Alexander the Great for becoming the first diamond trader.
According to historians, after his defeat at the hands of Porus, Alexander took a hefty amount of Diamond with him in 327 BCE.
However, a proper trade route was not established until the medieval age. This resulted in a tremendous surge in the mining works in India.
Marco Polo has mentioned the drastic effects of demand on supply in his book in 1292. Polo was a famous European traveller, also known for his writings . In one of his works, he has mentioned a diamond mining site in India that employed more than 60,000 people at a time.
Fast-forward to the 17th century, and India had already become the hub for diamond merchants. Britishers introduced more mining projects to meet the demands of the European market.. And the foreigners found a new reserve in South India to fulfill this demand.
The Golconda region became one of the most prominent sites in India. The Kollur mine present in this region produced some of the best diamonds known to men. Yes, you have guessed it right. The Koh-I-Noor also belongs to the Golconda region.
The quality of the diamonds mined from this site was such that the name Golconda Diamond became a benchmark in Europe. It was renowned worldwide as the Diamond capital of that time.
Even today, the word Golconda is present in the English dictionary. The word now means “a source of great wealth.”
Westerners exhausted the Indian mines in the coming time. As a result, they started running out of diamonds to meet the requirement of the Europeans.
That is when Brazil slowly took centre stage as one of the biggest diamond producers.
Brazil had already made a mark on the map of the miners by the end of the 17th century. Its rich deposits of element like gold had already lured several Europeans to establish colonies in this new world.
The Diamonds are said to have been discovered in the early 1700s in the province of Minas Gerias. However, the natives were not really aware of its significance at the start. Instead they used them as dibs for playing cards. It was only after a clerk who had worked at the Golconda mines recognized the priceless gems.
After this discovery, the Portuguese started mining the water body of the Minas region. And discovered a vast deposit of alluvial diamonds.
The first consignment of diamonds was moved out of Brazil to Lisbon in 1728. The exerts there examined and found these diamonds to be of high quality. As a result, more excavation missions were launched in the Minas province. Which resulted in disvovery of more diamonds.
Brazil was the first western country to produce diamonds. It dominated the market for 150 years until the discovery of diamonds in Kimberley, South Africa.
Like Brazil and India, the first diamonds found in South Africa were also alluvial. Kymberlite deposited precious gems on the banks of water bodies.
Deposited on the banks of water bodies after being carried to the surface by Kymberlites.
In fact, the first diamond here was discovered by a 15-year-old boy named Erasmus Jacob. He found it on the south bank of the Orange River.
However, later these diamonds started appearing in places far from water bodies. They were first discovered in yellow soils and later below hard rocks called blue grounds.
This discovery led to the start of the world's first underground mining of diamonds.
In an article, the Mining Council has mentioned has mentioned the history of first diamonds in South Africa. According to that article, the first one of them were found on the Vooruitzich farm in 1871. It belonged to the De Beers brothers. And British government forced them to sell it to a merchant named Alfred Ebden.
Workers dug the first underground mine by bare hands. This site was named "The Big Hole," spreading over a surface area of 273 hectares. It was 463 meters wide and had a depth of 240 meters, making it the biggest diamond mine excavated by hands in the history of humanity.
One other mine operated on the same farmland was named De Beers mine. It later served as an inspiration to the formation of the famous diamond company De Beers.
In the next 15-20 years, around 50 thousand miners worked upon these excavation sites. And curated almost 2,720kg or 13,600,000 carats of diamonds.
This was more than the diamond produced in India over the past 2000 years.
The world of diamond mining has expanded drastically in the last 100 years. All courtesy to the discoveries made in South Africa.
The studies based on the mining done in Africa opened doors for other countries to determine and discover new sites. As a result of which, around 25 countries across the seven continents today are producing diamonds.
The major production however is being controlled by Australia, Botswana, Russia, Congo, and South Africa. These countries are mining in a manageable and sustainable manner to ensure the consistent supply of these marvelous gems worldwide.
