Full of mysteries and mysteries and the fate of the world's most famous diamond "Shah", because of which dozens of human lives were also ruined. It is 3 centimeters in size, clean and transparent, slightly yellowish from the surface, and weighs 88.7 carats. The diamond was found among the usual pebbles in the mines of Golconda more than 500 years ago. It has retained its natural shape, and only some of its facets have been polished.
The Italian traveler Marco Polo wrote: "Nowhere in the world, only in this kingdom are their diamonds, there are many of them and all the good ones. But do not think that the best diamonds went to our Christian countries, carry them to the great khan, to the kings and princes of the local countries and kingdoms. They have great wealth, and they buy all the expensive stones.
That is why the yellowish elongated diamond immediately fell into the hands of the ruler of Golconda. According to the rule of Indian cutters, a diamond of the highest quality should have tops, sides, and edges in the amount of 6, 8 and 12. They should be sharp, smooth and straightforward, that is, the diamond should have a crystallographic form of an octahedron. In addition, the stone should be a brahman (according to the Indian division of stones into four grades), that is, absolutely colorless and transparent.
The yellowish diamond "Shah", whose shape was far from perfect, belonged to the variety "vaishya", so it was briefly held in the hands of the Indians and was sold to the ruler of Ahmadnagar.
Sultan Ahmadnagar was at that time a Muslim Burhan II. A huge elongated diamond - the finger of Allah - struck the imagination of the ruler, and the vast flat edges of the diamond appeared to him as tablets of history, on which to perpetuate his name.
A brilliant master from the court stone-cutting workshop of Burhan the Second covered the octahedral facet of the diamond with a thin layer of wax and a needle scratched the necessary words. Then, on the tip of a steel (or copper) needle soaked in oil, he collected diamond dust and scratched endlessly on the edge.
So the first inscription appeared - "Burhan-Nizam-Shah II. The year 1000". It was this inscription that helped scientists to recreate the history of the stone.
The diamond "Shah" did not decorate the treasury of Burhan II for long. According to our calculation, the year 1000 corresponds to the year 1591. It was then that the Great Mogul Akbar - an outstanding statesman and military leader - ruled in Northern India. In 1595 his troops captured Ahmadnagar, and among the jewels of the ruler found this unique stone. So diamond "Shah" became dynastic regalia of Great Moguls. More than forty years he lay in their treasury until he fell into the eyes of Shah Jahan, who combined the royal grandeur with the professionalism of the master-cutter. He spent many hours in a cutting workshop, processing gems himself. Maybe he was involved in polishing some of the facets of the diamond to see the transparency of the stone. Then he ordered a second inscription to be carved on the diamond: "Son of Jehangir Shah Jehangir Shah. 1051".
In 1665, the Shah diamond was first seen by a European, a famous French traveler J.B. Tavernier. The diamond was suspended from the throne of the Great Moguls and hung so that the person sitting on the throne constantly saw it in front of him. The stone is surrounded by a deep groove so that it could be hung on the neck (as a talisman) on a silk or gold thread.
In 1739, the Indian city of Delhi, where the stone was then located, was attacked by Nadir Shah. He sent the diamond to Persia, and in Persia, the third inscription appeared on the stone: "Lord Kajar-Faht-Ali-shah. Sultan. 1242».
At the end of January 1829 during the riots in Tehran the Russian ambassador A.S. Griboyedov, the author of the famous comedy "Woe from Wit" was killed. The murder of the diplomat of the great power threatened with serious complications, and a special delegation headed by the son of Abbas-mirza - Prince Khosrav-mirza - was sent to St. Petersburg. In order to atone for the Persian people, he offered Russia to accept the most precious thing of the Persian crown - the Shah diamond. In response to the ornate speech of Khosrov-mirza, the Russian emperor seemed to say only seven words: "I am forgetting eternal unfortunate Tehran incident".
For a long time, this version was considered the only one in history, but now some scientists believe that in reality, it was not quite so. Apparently, the version that the diamond was given for the death of A.S. Griboyedov appeared due to the story of Y.N. Tynyanov "Death of Vazir-Mukhtar". But orientalist V.F. Minorsky in the 1920s established that the Russian Tsar and did not think to demand "the price for blood" of A.S. Griboyedov.