The History of Diamonds

The cutting of diamonds dates back to the beginning of the 1400's in Paris, and they became popular in jewellery and became even more potent symbols of love, wealth, devotion and power. Diamonds are seen as something that lasts forever and the De Beers advertising campaign of the mid 1990s which states that 'a diamond is forever' is one of the most successful campaigns of all time. Indeed the name 'diamond' comes from the Greek word 'adamas' which means 'unconquerable'.

Each diamond takes millions of years to form – they have been crystallised at extremely high temperatures and pressure, deep beneath the earth's crust. They remain there until they are carried upward in molten lava, and then covered over again with ash and rock. Only a small number of diamonds survive and of the ones that do only a tiny amount are of a size that can be cut and set into jewellery.

Today almost half of our diamonds come from central and southern Africa but there have been quite a few found in Russia, Canada, Australia and India, but microdiamonds, formed from meteors crashing to Earth have also been found around the world. Diamonds originated in India where they were discovered in 800BC, but it wasn't until 1866 that South Africa was discovered as being a significant source of diamonds when a farmer's child playing beside the river with some brightly coloured stones, one of which turned out to be the diamond 'Eureka'. Although Africa is now the predominant source of diamonds, it takes a lot of work to find just one – enough sand to fill one house will need to be carefully sifted through to find just one diamond. In fact if you were to gather together all the diamonds ever polished since the beginning of time, there would only be enough to fill one double decker bus!

It wasn't until the fifteenth century that it became common place to give a diamond ring as a symbol of love and commitment, and it became tradition after the Archduke Maximilan of Austria gave Mary of Burgundy a diamond ring on their engagement. In England lovers used diamond rings to engrave romantic messages on window panes, and diamond rings therefore became known as scribbling rings. Diamond rings are not the only diamond jewellery to be considered romantic – in the nineteenth century Napoleon gave Marie Louise a diamond necklace to celebrate the birth of their son. However diamonds are not just considered a romantic gift given by a lover – for example Gwyneth Paltrows father bought her the 40 carat diamond necklace she had borrowed to wear at the Oscars, when she won the Best Actress award.