This is an archive article published on September 9, 2022

Kohinoor: A brief history of the precious diamond which is now a British crown jewel

While Queen Victoria wore it as a brooch, Kohinoor soon became a part of crown jewels - first in the crown of Queen Alexandra and then in the crown of Queen Mary

Queen Elizabeth wore the crown without its arches at the State Openings of Parliament during the reign of King George VI (Source: Royal Collection Trust)

By: Lifestyle Desk

3 min readNew DelhiSep 15, 2022 12:13 PM IST First published on: Sep 9, 2022 at 07:00 PM IST

Queen Elizabeth II, Britain’s longest-reigning monarch, breathed her last on Thursday at Balmoral Castle in Scotland. Following her death, social media became abuzz with demands for Kohinoor’s return to India. Meaning ‘Mountain of Light’, Kohinoor is a 105.6-carat colourless diamond which is believed to have been first mined in the 13th century, near Guntur in Andhra Pradesh by the Kakatiya dynasty.

Over the years, the jewel got passed on to the Delhi Sultan Alauddin Khilji and then to the Mughal empire following which Persian invader Nadir Shah took it to Afghanistan. It passed through different dynasties before reaching Ranjit Singh, the Sikh Maharaja of Punjab, in 1809. With Singh’s successor losing the kingdom to the British, the Kohinoor was ceded to Queen Victoria during the colonial rule.