A Cursed(?) Diamond’s Story: The Koh-i-Noor

Last week, I said I’d have “…tales of cursed gems, glow-in-the-dark diamonds, diamonds from outer space…” ready this week: “barring the unexpected”.

Then the unexpected happened. But I do have most of the Koh-i-Noor’s story ready for you.

I pieced together much that diamond’s story this week: from the “mythical” king of a place that’s not there any more, to present-day England:

• Koh-i-Noor: Diamond of Destiny, Slayer of Sultans and Shahs
  • “The Diamond Does Not Satisfy”
  • Doom of Afrasiab
  • Emperors, Sultans, Shahs: and the Koh-i-Noor Gets Its Name
  • The Body Count Grows
  • In the Shadow of the Koh-i-Noor
• “…More Things in Heaven and Earth….”
  • Superstition, Seances, and “Supernatural”

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Koh-i-Noor: Diamond of Destiny, Slayer of Sultans and Shahs

I’ll say this for England of the mid-19th century. Folks writing marketing copy weren’t shy.

Take the 1951 world’s fair in London for example: the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, or Crystal Palace Exhibition.

The “crystal” palace was some 60,000 panes of plate glass held together by 4,000 tons of iron, some unspecified amount of wood, and that’s another topic for another time.¹

The Great Exhibition’s Crystal Palace and exhibits actually were impressive.

“The Diamond Does Not Satisfy”

The Industrial Revolution had been in progress for nearly a century. New technology had been shifting everyday priorities from avoiding starvation to choosing home furnishings.

But I get the impression that the event’s advertising hype got out of hand.

“The Koh-i-Noor is not the solitary occupant of the formidable cage and safe which has been provided for it by Chubb. On either side shine two ‘lesser lights,’ and the whole collection, like other radiant bodies, descends into darkness when the time for its exhibition has closed, and emerges again from its cast-iron prison when it is proper that the public should see it”
(The Times (May 3, 1851) via “Henry Cole and the Koh-i-Noor Diamond“, Nicholas Smith, Blog, The V&A (August 22, 2017)) [emphasis mine]

A month and a half later, a great many folks at the Great Exhibition had seen the 105.6 carat diamond: and been underwhelmed.

Changing the Koh-i-Nor’s display, this time with special lighting, helped. But a diamond weighing about three quarters of an ounce — it simply isn’t all that large.

“After all the work which has been made about that celebrated diamond our readers will be rather surprised to hear that many people find a difficulty in bringing themselves to believe, from its external appearance, that it is anything but a piece of common glass.”
(The Times (June 13, 1851) via “Henry Cole and the Koh-i-Noor Diamond“, Nicholas Smith, Blog, The V&A (August 22, 2017)) [emphasis mine]

And, impressive as their physical properties are, diamonds won’t sparkle spectacularly unless they’ve been properly cut and polished. Even then, you won’t get your money’s worth unless the lighting’s right.

The Koh-i-Nor’s old-style Mughal cut didn’t help. It — my opinion — does a good job of making a stone seem massive. But it’s not good for creating that quivering-rainbow light show my branch of Western civilization likes.

Somebody at The Times touched on that, and pointed out what the Great Exhibition folks should have done. In The Times’ opinion.

“The Koh-i-Noor is at present decidedly the ‘Lion of the Exhibition.’ A mysterious interest appears to be attached to it, and now that so many precautions have been resorted to, and so much difficulty attends it’s inspection, the crowd is enormously enhanced, and the policemen at either end of the covered entrance have much trouble in restraining the struggling and impatient multitude. For some hours yesterday there were never less than couple of hundred persons waiting their turn of admission, and yet after all, the diamond does not satisfy. Either from the imperfect cutting or the difficulty of placing the lights advantageously, or the immovability of the stone itself, which should be made to revolve on it’s [!] axis, few catch any of the brilliant rays, it reflects when viewed at a particular angle.”
(The Times ([?] [?], 1851) via Koh-i-Noor Diamond, InternetStones.com) [emphasis mine]

Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s husband, had the Koh-i-Noor re-cut as an oval brilliant: that’s the spinning-top shape I associate with diamonds.² His apparent motives make sense to me, since the diamond sparkles more now, although there’s less of it.

Doom of Afrasiab

The Koh-i-Noor diamond’s story begins back when Narmer was running both upper and lower Egypt.

To the east, artisans whose names have long been forgotten wrought fine statuettes which the rich still treasure.

Meanwhile, the great king Afrasiab wore two magnificent diamonds: Mountain of Light and Ocean of Light.

“…Mountain of light! The Kohinoor. First worn in the crown, perhaps, of a great ruler in India five thousand years ago. The Koh-i-nur, or Mountain of Light, was next heard of as a great companion to the Darya-i-Nor, the Sea of Light, in the scabbard of Afrasiab around 3,000 B.C….”
(“Jewels and the woman“ ; “The romance, magic and art of feminine adornment” ; The Diamonds; Marianne Ostier (2022) via Project Gutenberg)

There’s quite a story about Afrasiab. Several different stories, I’m guessing, since I read that he’s an Iranian king and a foe of Iran. Plus, it seems that he’s “mythical”: which by this time is true.

As for being an Iranian king: Afrasiab ruled Turan, a country that’s not there any more, east of the Caspian Sea and north of the Pamir Mountains.

***

An Arthurian/Washingtonian Aside

I get the impression, after spending too much time trying to learn Afrasiab’s story, that he’s an Iranian analog to England’s King Arthur. Or maybe Mordred, or Morgan le Fay.

I also suspect that I’m like a hypothetical someone living around the year 5500, ferreting out facts from stories about King Arthur and Washington’s Quest for the Cherry Tree of Truth — which were written by some imaginative chap in the 25th century.

***

Back to the Koh-i-Noor

Let’s see what happened after this mythical king started wearing the Koh-i-Noor diamond.

“…Afrasiab sues for peace, Siavaksh concludes a treaty; but Kai Kaus will not confirm it. That he may not break his word, Siavaksh gives himself up to the Turanians. Afrasiab receives him with honour, and gives him his daughter Feringis to wife. Subsequently he harbours suspicion against him, causes him to be executed, and the son, whom Feringis bears after the execution of her husband, to be brought up among the shepherds without any knowledge of his birth. To this son an abode is then allotted in a remote region of Turan.

“To avenge the execution of Siavaksh[,] Rustem invades Turan. Victorious in the battle[,] he causes Surkha, the son of Afrasiab, whom he captures in the battle, to be put to death in the same way as Siavaksh, pursues Afrasiab to the extreme border of his kingdom, and does not return till the whole of Turan has been laid waste: the booty is immense….”
(“The History of Antiquity, Vol. 5“ (of 6), p. 254; Max Duncker (1881) translated by Evelyn Abbott, via Gutenberg.org) [emphasis mine]

Recapping: Afrasiab makes a point of honoring this conquered enemy and giving one of his daughters as a wife — that’s a whole mess of topics I’ll ignore today.

But then Afrasiab has his conquered enemy and son-in-law killed, and kidnaps his grandson, arranging for the child to be raised as a shepherd in some forsaken armpit of his territory.

Small wonder that someone raised an army, killed Afrasiab’s son, and hunted down the filicidal king. The story’s complicated; involving a cave, a lake, and some sort of hermit. But finally Afrasiab’s head got detached,³ and the Koh-i-noor fell into the mists of time.

Emperors, Sultans, Shahs: and the Koh-i-Noor Gets Its Name

Fast-forward four and a half millennia.

Ẓahīr-ud-Dīn Muhammad Bābur — I’m going to call him Babur — wrote about a diamond he’d acquired.

Seems that Sultan Al-ed-Din Khalji of Delhi had held a diamond that’d come from southern India.

The chronology I found was muddled, but I gather that a Prince Vikramaditya — I’m guessing that’s Hemu Vikramaditya, don’t bother trying to remember these names — the point is that Vikramaditya sent this oversized diamond to the fort of Agra for safekeeping.

Then, when Babur’s forces rolled over that part of India, he presumably acquired the diamond, along with anything else worth hauling away. Babur’s son, Humayun, lost the whole empire, got it back, and died after falling down stairs with an armful of books.

Humayun’s son Akbar inherited the empire, and presumably the diamond. Then he died of a horrible disease. Up to this point, the diamond’s been called the Babur Diamond.

A little over a century of politics later, Nader Shah said “koh-i-noor!” when he saw it, along with the rest of his loot. He’d conquered Muhammad Shah, the 13th Mughal emperor.

That’s how the Koh-i-noor got its name: it means “mountain of light” in Persian.

Anyway, Nader Shah got sick, which apparently made him cranky. At any rate, after someone tried killing him, he decided that his son must have been to blame. So he told someone to take out his son’s eyes. Then he started killing nobles who’d been witnesses.

That, and possibly a habit he developed of making little towers of his victims’ skulls, wasn’t good for morale. Some of his staff decided that they’d get him before he got them. Which they did, removing his head for good measure.⁴

The Body Count Grows

Next stop for the Koh-i-Noor was Ahmad Shah Durrani, grandson of Nader Shah and founder of the Durrani Empire. He inherited the gem, got sick, then an ulcer on his nose spread into his brain, and he died.

One of Ahmad Shah Durrani’s grandsons, Shah Shujah Durrani, wore the Koh-i-Noor on a bracelet. He allied himself with the United Kingdom, was promptly overthrown, and took himself and the diamond to Lahore.

Ranjit Singh was running Lahore and setting up the Sikh Empire when Ahmend Shah Durrani asked for shelter. He let Shah Shujah Durrani stay, but took the Koh-i-Noor.

Then Ranjit Singh got sick, had a stroke, and died. Just before he died, he said that his jewels, the Koh-i-Noor included, should go to the Jagannath Temple. Probably. There was a difference of opinion, and the treasurer ended up keeping the Koh-i-Noor in the vaults.

The next Sikh emperor was dethroned by his prime minister, who took the Koh-i-Noor. The prime minister kept it until he figured it’d make a nice present for the then-current emperor.

Then someone killed that emperor. When the bodies stopped falling, a five-year-old was emperor: and the youngster had the Koh-i-Noor attached to his arm.

The East India Company — that’s yet another topic — conquered the Sikh Empire in 1858. They specifically demanded that the Koh-i-Noor come to England.

The ship carrying the Koh-i-Noor did make it to England, but it was an eventful trip. A cholera outbreak on board resulted in Mauritanians wanting the ship gone. Or sunk.

But cholera didn’t kill the crew, and a 12-day gale didn’t sink the ship: which arrived in England on June 29, 1850.

East India Company’s deputy chairman formally presented Queen Victoria with the Koh-i-noor on July 3. 1850.

The Koh-i-Noor has been property of the current British monarch ever since.⁵

In the Shadow of the Koh-i-Noor

In 1854, the 4th and 13th Light Dragoons, 17th Lancers, with the 8th and 11th Hussars, committed mass suicide in what we call the Charge of the Light Brigade.

They weren’t entirely successful, but despite testimony from survivors, we’re still not sure what went so horribly wrong.

The Panic of 1879 began years of sub-par economic conditions. It was particularly bad in the United Kingdom.

A serial killer terrorized London in 1888.

Queen Victoria was ill in 1900, and died in January 0f 1901.⁶

Spinning all those items from England’s history as a slow-acting curse of the Koh-i-Noor could be done, and maybe has. I won’t, although I will indulge in a little speculation about messy deaths associated with the Koh-i-Noor.

Owning the Koh-i-Noor does correlate with violent and/or unpleasant death. But a fair fraction of all old-school rulers experienced violent and/or unpleasant deaths.

There are reasons so many of them were paranoid. People they knew really were trying to kill them. And occasionally did.

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“…More Things in Heaven and Earth….”

Hamlet:
“…There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy….”
(“The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark” , Act I, Scene IV, lines 185–186; William Shakespeare (ca. 1599-1601) via The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, MIT)

This is where I had planned on discussing folklore, tales of cursed gems, and how such things connect with history. That’s not going to happen. Not this week.

Between insomnia; an unexpected and very pleasant visit with our second daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter; and difficulty I had in finding useful material — I’m settling for a few excerpts and a short ramble.

Superstition, Seances, and “Supernatural”

I’m a Catholic, and take my faith seriously. So I accept that there’s more to reality than the branch of philosophy we call “science”.

On the other hand, being superstitious is not an option.

Then there’s stuff like divination and seances: which are also not reasonable options. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2006)

Which reminds me of the Endor incident. Saul really should have known better.
(1 Samuel 28 18:7–25)

Now, a couple definitions:

“Superstition is the deviation of religious feeling and of the practices this feeling imposes. It can even affect the worship we offer the true God, e.g., when one attributes an importance in some way magical to certain practices otherwise lawful or necessary. To attribute the efficacy of prayers or of sacramental signs to their mere external performance, apart from the interior dispositions that they demand, is to fall into superstition.“
(Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2111) [emphasis mine]

“SUPERNATURAL: surpassing the power of created beings; a result of God’s gracious initiative. Our vocation to eternal life is supernatural. (1998, cf. 1722)”

“SUPERSTITION: the attribution of a kind of magical power to certain practices or objects, like charms or omens. Reliance on such power, rather than on trust in God, constitutes an offense against the honor due to God alone, as required by the first commandment. (2110)”
(Catechism, Glossary)

Getting back to the Koh-i-Noor and jinxed gems: I don’t think owning that particular diamond comes with a curse.

The way they lived, and human nature being what it is — we’re not basically bad, but we’re all dealing with consequences a really bad decision, and that’s yet again another topic — it’s a wonder more of the VIPs who owned the Koh-i-Noor didn’t get themselves killed.

Finally, being a Catholic in a society where the ‘spirituality’ settings are a mix of Calvinist and secularist, with a little carnival fortune-teller thrown in: it’s not always easy. Particularly when I try explaining how I see folklore and being “spiritual”:

• “St. Patrick’s Day: Shamrocks, Saints, Leprechauns, and Me”
  (March 16, 2024)
• “Groundhog Day, and Me in Three Words”
  (February 2, 2021)
• “Spiritualism, Attitudes”
  (June 1, 2018)
• “Spirit Photographs”
  (April 11, 2018)
• “Numbers and Nero”
  (November 8, 2016)

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¹ English extravaganza, 1851:

• Wikipedia
  • British industrial architecture (page in the English Wikipedia: which may explain the focus)
  • The Crystal Palace
  • Great Exhibition (world’s fair 1851)
  • World’s fair

² The Great Exhibition and Koh-i-Noor, in context:

• Wikipedia
  • Brilliant (diamond cut) (not the only way to cut a gem, but a familiar shape)
  • Cut (gems)
  • Great Exhibition (world’s fair 1851)
  • Human history
  • Industrial Revolution
  • Koh-i-Noor (Persian name of a diamond, also spelled Koh-e-Noor, Kohinoor, Koh-i-Nur in my language)
  • Lapidary (the craft and art of making gems look good)
  • Right to property
  • Standard of living
• Lighting 4 Diamonds
  thejewelrylightingexperts.com
• Mughal Cut
  AJU, Antique Jewelry University
• “Stories about Famous Precious Stones” , IV. The Koh-i-Noor
  Mrs. Goddard Orpen (1890)

³ “Very deep is the well of the past…” (“Joseph and His Brothers“, Prologue; Thomas Mann (1933-1943) translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter); a few details, including some that didn’t get into this week’s post:

• Wikipedia
  • Afrasiab (mythical king and hero of Turan, main antagonist of the Persian epic Shahnameh; “Afrasiab” is my language’s version of a Persian name)
  • Afrasiyab (Samarkand) (ancient site well east of the Caspian Sea, occupied ca. 500 B.C.-1220 A.D.)
  • The Apotheosis of Washington
  • Classical Athens (Aegean, ca. 508-322 B.C.)
  • Daria-i-Noor (Persian name of a diamond, means “Sea of Light” or “Ocean of Light”)
  • Cucuteni-Trypillia culture (west of the Black Sea, ca. 4800-3000 B.C.)
  • Elam (east of the Persian Gulf, ca. 3200-539 B.C.)
  • First Dynasty of Egypt (Nile, ca. 3100 BC-900 B.C.)
  • George Washington
  • Mason Locke Weems
  • Guennol Lioness (5,000-year-old Mesopotamian limestone statuette)
  • Horus name (one of a pharaoh’s names)
  • King Arthur (British(?) or Welsh(?) warlord(?), late 5th to early 6th centuries A.D.)
  • Koh-i-Noor (Persian name of a diamond, also spelled Koh-e-Noor, Kohinoor, Koh-i-Nur in my language)
  • George Washington
  • Mason Locke Weems
  • Menes (might be another name used by Narmer, ca. 3200-3000 B.C.)
  • Mordred (associated with King Arthur)
  • Morgan le Fay (associated with King Arthur)
  • Narmer (might be another name used by Menes, fl. ca. 3150 B.C.)
  • Pamir Mountains
  • Pharaoh
  • Prenomen (Ancient Egypt) (one of a pharaoh’s names, AKA Sedge and Bee name, referring to upper and lower Egypt: it’s complicated)
  • Proto-Elamite (period) (east of the Persian Gulf, ca. 3100-2700 B.C.)
  • Skara Brae (Orkney archipelago, 3180-2500 B.C.)
  • Turan (land east of the Caspian Sea, my language’s version of a Persian name)
  • Two Ladies (one of a pharaoh’s names)
    • Nebty name
• Kneeling bull holding a spouted vessel (Proto-Elamite silver statuette)
  The Met
• Koh-i-Noor Diamond
  InternetStones.com
• Statuette of a Striding Figure
  Mesopotamian or Iranian
  Art Institute Chicago
• “The History of Antiquity, Vol. 5” (of 6), p. 254
  Max Duncker (1881) translated by Evelyn Abbott, via Gutenberg.org)n
• I’ve indulged in hypothetical ‘what ifs’ involving currently-famous folks and the passage of time: these two, for example
  • “History, Viewpoints, Narratives and Ancient Rome” (July 2, 2022)
    • A Hypothetical Situation: Washington, From a 68th Century Perspective
  • “The Past: What We Know, What We Don’t” (March 30, 2017)
    • Wizard Oil and Linear A
    • Unanswered Questions

⁴ Emperors, Sultans, the occasional assassination; connected by a diamond:

• Wikipedia
  • Akbar (son of Humayun, third Mughal emperor, reigned 1556-1605)
  • Alauddin Khalji (ruler of the Delhi Sultanate (1296-1316)
  • Babur (AKA Ẓahīr-ud-Dīn Muhammad Bābur, founder of the Mughal Empire in the Indian subcontinent, reigned 1526-1530)
  • Baburnama (Babur’s memoirs)
  • Delhi Sultanate
  • Dysentery (a remarkably unpleasant and lethal disease)
  • Hemu (AKA Hemu Vikramaditya, Hemchandra Vikramaditya; reigned October-November 1556, beheaded by Akbar)
  • Humayun (AKA Nasir al-Din Muhammad, son of Babur, emperor of the Mughal Empire, reigned 1530-1540)
  • Indian Rebellion of 1857 (AKA Sepoy Mutiny, the Indian Mutiny, the Great Rebellion, the Revolt of 1857, the Indian Insurrection, the First War of Independence)
  • Koh-i-Noor (Persian name of a diamond, also spelled Koh-e-Noor, Kohinoor, Koh-i-Nur in my language)
  • Koh-i-Noor: The History of the World’s Most Infamous Diamond (William Dalrymple, Anita Anand (2017))
  • Muhammad Shah (thirteenth Mughal emperor, reigned 1719-1748)
  • Nader Shah (AKA Nadir Shah, founder of the Afsharid dynasty of Iran and one of the country’s most powerful rulers; reigned 1736-1747)
  • Peacock Throne (the imperial throne of Hindustan, there’s two of them: one taken as a war trophy by Nader Shah, the next disappeared in the Indian Rebellion of 1857)
  • Sher Shah Suri (defeated Humayun, reigned 1538-1545)
• Koh-i-Noor Diamond
  InternetStones.com
• Koh-i-noor [sic]
  Jeweler Magazine

⁵ People, places, and a diamond that’s left death in its wake:

• Wikipedia
  • Ahmad Shah Durrani (AKA Ahmad Shāh Abdālī, grandson of Nader Shah, founder of the Durrani Empire, reigned 1747-1772)
  • East India Company (a joint stock English/British company, 1600-1874, state-owned after 1858)
  • Lahore (city in Pakistan)
  • Jagannath Temple, Puri (“This article needs additional citations for verification….”) (on the eastern coast of India)
  • Koh-i-Noor (Persian name of a diamond, also spelled Koh-e-Noor, Kohinoor, Koh-i-Nur in my language)
  • Ranjit Singh (founder and first maharaja of the Sikh Empire, reigned 1801-1839)
  • Second Anglo-Sikh war (“This article has multiple issues….”) (1848-1849)
  • Shah Shujah Durrani (reigned 1803-1809, then 1839-1842)
  • Sikh Empire (1799-1849)

⁶ England’s queen gets the Koh-i-Noor, and then:

• Wikipedia
  • Charge of the Light Brigade
  • Great Exhibition (world’s fair 1851)
  • Panic of 1873 (start of the Long Depression)
  • Long Depression (six years or two decades of economic bad times in North America and Europe: and particularly the United Kingdom)
  • Jack the Ripper (serial killer, active in 1888)
  • Queen Victoria (ruler of England/Britain/United Kingdom, reigned 1837-1901)