The Koh-i-Noor Diamond: An Empire and a 700-Year Argument

On 6 May 2023, at the coronation of King Charles III in Westminster Abbey, Queen Camilla wore a crown that had been substantially modified for the occasion. The original setting, Queen Mary's Crown of 1911, contained the Koh-i-Noor diamond at its central cross. For the 2023 ceremony, the Koh-i-Noor was removed and replaced with three stones from the Cullinan: pieces of a different historical diamond, with different political resonances. The Koh-i-Noor stayed at the Tower of London, where it lives in the Jewel House display, behind glass.

Camilla's decision, or more precisely the Palace's decision, made on her behalf, was the first time in eighty-six years that a British monarch's consort had been crowned without the Koh-i-Noor on her person. It was not announced as a political gesture. It was, however, understood as one. By the time the coronation took place, India, Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan all had public claims on the diamond. India's claim was the loudest, and the Indian government had stated publicly that the Koh-i-Noor's appearance at the ceremony would be considered a diplomatic provocation. The Palace chose not to provoke.

What follows is the case for why all four countries believe they have a claim, why the British Crown is in physical possession, and how a 105.6-carat oval diamond, cut down from a rough that may originally have weighed over 700 carats, came to be the most politically inconvenient single object in the Royal Collection.

The story starts roughly seven hundred years ago, in a part of southern India that no longer mines diamonds.

Kollur

The Koh-i-Noor was almost certainly mined at Kollur, in the Golconda region of what is now the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Golconda was the only meaningful source of large diamonds in the world before the eighteenth century. Every major historical diamond from before the Brazilian discoveries of 1726, and almost every important historical diamond before the South African discoveries of 1867, came from this single river system. The Hope Diamond came from Kollur. The Regent Diamond came from Kollur. The Great Mogul, the Orloff, the Idol's Eye. The mines ran for roughly four hundred years and then stopped producing. They have been silent for over two centuries.

The dating of the Koh-i-Noor's discovery is genuinely uncertain. Indian sources reference a great diamond held by the Kakatiya dynasty as early as the thirteenth century, in the temple of Bhadrakali at Warangal. Whether that stone is the same stone that became the Koh-i-Noor is contested among gemmologists and historians. What is more firmly established is that by the early sixteenth century, when the Mughal emperor Babur conquered the Delhi Sultanate, the diamond was in Mughal possession.

The Peacock Throne

The Mughal emperors are the first reliably documented owners. Babur, in his memoirs, describes a great diamond received as a gift from the family of the defeated Sultan of Delhi in 1526. He estimates its value at two and a half days' food for the whole world. Whether he was being literal or rhetorical is unclear. Either way, the stone was in his possession.

Shah Jahan, Babur's great-grandson and the builder of the Taj Mahal, set the diamond, along with the Timur Ruby and other significant stones, into the Peacock Throne in 1635. The throne itself was a confection of jewels and gold designed to impress every visiting ambassador, and it did. European travellers' accounts of the Peacock Throne, particularly the French gem trader Jean-Baptiste Tavernier's detailed description from his 1665 visit, are some of the most important sources we have for the Mughal jewellery tradition. Tavernier described the Koh-i-Noor (then unnamed) as set among the peacocks of the throne.

What I find worth noting about this period is that the diamond was not a singular object. It was one of many great stones in a complex of decorative imperial display. The Mughals did not treat it the way the British would later treat it, as a singular crown jewel. It was, simply, one of the more remarkable stones in the world's most spectacular furniture.

The Peacock Throne stayed in Delhi for ninety-four years.

Nader Shah, 1739

In March 1739, Nader Shah of Persia invaded Mughal India and sacked Delhi. The casualty count was catastrophic and remains contested (estimates run from twenty thousand to over a hundred thousand) and the looting was systematic. The Peacock Throne was dismantled. Its stones, including the future Koh-i-Noor, were carried back to Persia.

There is a story, possibly apocryphal but widely repeated, that Nader Shah saw the diamond for the first time when the defeated Mughal emperor Muhammad Shah was forced to exchange turbans with him. The story goes that Nader, holding the diamond up to the light, exclaimed Koh-i-Noor, meaning "Mountain of Light" in Persian, and the name stuck. Historians are divided on whether the exchange actually happened. What is reliably documented is that the stone left Delhi with Nader Shah and that the name dates from this period.

Nader Shah was assassinated by his own generals in 1747. His empire fragmented immediately. The diamond passed to one of his commanders, Ahmad Shah Durrani, who took it east and founded what would become Afghanistan. For the next sixty years, the Koh-i-Noor lived in Kabul, Kandahar, and Lahore, moving with successive Afghan and Sikh rulers through a complicated succession of inheritances, betrayals, and seizures.

Lahore

By the early nineteenth century, the diamond had returned to the Indian subcontinent, in the possession of the Sikh ruler Maharaja Ranjit Singh of the Punjab. Ranjit Singh acquired it in 1813 from the exiled Afghan ruler Shah Shujah Durrani, who had brought it with him when seeking refuge in Lahore. The terms of the exchange (whether it was a gift, a tribute, or extracted under duress) remain contested.

Ranjit Singh wore the Koh-i-Noor in an armband. He kept it for twenty-six years and died in 1839. His will reportedly directed the diamond to a Hindu temple in Puri, in Odisha. His successors did not honour the bequest. The Sikh court descended into a decade of succession crises during which the diamond was held by a series of child Maharajas and their regents.

What was happening simultaneously, in London, was that the East India Company was watching the Sikh kingdom with very particular interest.

The Treaty of Lahore, 1849

The Second Anglo-Sikh War ended in March 1849 with the British annexation of the Punjab. The Treaty of Lahore, signed by the boy Maharaja Duleep Singh, then aged ten, included a specific clause requiring the surrender of the Koh-i-Noor to Queen Victoria. The treaty was witnessed by his mother, Maharani Jind Kaur, who had been imprisoned by the British, and signed under conditions that any modern court would describe as duress.

The diamond was placed under armed guard, transported by ship to London, and presented to Queen Victoria at Buckingham Palace on 3 July 1850. The ceremony was modest. Victoria's first reaction, recorded in her diary, was that the diamond was less impressive than she had expected. The Mughal-era cut, which preserved as much of the original mass as possible, did not produce the kind of brilliance Victorian taste preferred.

This sets up the next chapter, which is what Victoria's husband Albert decided to do about it.

The recutting

Prince Albert, who took an active interest in the diamond and was responsible for many of its subsequent decisions, commissioned a recutting in 1852. The work was carried out by the Amsterdam firm of Coster, under the supervision of the Duke of Wellington (who, at eighty-two, ceremonially placed the first stone on the cutting wheel). The recutting took thirty-eight days. The diamond went from 186 carats to 105.6 carats. Forty per cent of the stone, by mass, was ground away.

The result was, by Victorian aesthetic standards, an improvement. The recut Koh-i-Noor had the symmetry and brilliance the period valued. By the standards of modern gemmology, and by the standards of nearly every culture that had previously owned the stone, the recutting was a significant act of cultural vandalism. The Mughal-era cut had been not merely a different aesthetic but a different idea about what a great diamond should look like: a preservation of the stone's mass, with the visible inclusions and irregularities seen as evidence of authenticity rather than imperfection. Albert's recutting replaced that with a Victorian European preference for brilliance. The stone has stayed in the recut form ever since.

In the Crown Jewels

After the recutting, the Koh-i-Noor was set first in a brooch worn by Queen Victoria, then transferred at her death to the Crown Jewels collection. It has been set in the coronation crown of every British Queen Consort since: Queen Alexandra in 1902, Queen Mary in 1911, Queen Elizabeth (the Queen Mother) in 1937. Queen Camilla, in 2023, broke the sequence.

The pattern was not coincidental. Folkloric belief, dating back to the Mughal period and possibly earlier, held that the Koh-i-Noor brought misfortune to male rulers but was safe for women. The British monarchy, perhaps inheriting the belief and perhaps simply finding it useful, has consistently worn the diamond only on the consort, never on the monarch. King Edward VII did not wear it. Nor did George V, George VI, Elizabeth II, or Charles III. The diamond's eight decades in the Crown Jewels have been spent entirely on the heads of queens.

The four claims

India's claim is the most prominent. The Indian government has formally requested the return of the diamond multiple times since independence in 1947, most recently in 2016, when the Indian Solicitor General told the Supreme Court that the diamond had been "voluntarily" given to the British, before the position was officially walked back. The Indian claim rests on the Treaty of Lahore having been signed under duress by a child Maharaja.

Pakistan's claim rests on geography. The diamond was held in Lahore (in modern Pakistan, then in undivided India) at the moment it was seized. The Pakistani government formally requested return in 1976. Their argument is that whatever the merits of India's claim, Pakistan has the stronger geographical title.

Iran's claim rests on Nader Shah, who took the stone to Persia in 1739 and held it for eight years before his assassination. The Iranian position has been less consistently asserted but has been raised diplomatically on multiple occasions.

Afghanistan's claim rests on Ahmad Shah Durrani, the founder of modern Afghanistan, who held the diamond after Nader Shah's death and whose successors held it until 1813. The Taliban formally raised the claim in 2000 and again in 2022.

The British position is, in summary, that the diamond was acquired legally under the terms of an internationally recognised treaty, and that returning it to any single claimant would prejudice the others. This is, in legal terms, accurate. It is also, in moral terms, the position of the strongest party in a dispute it cannot lose.

Where it sits

The Koh-i-Noor is, as of May 2026, in the Tower of London. It is set in Queen Mary's Crown of 1911, displayed in the Jewel House, viewable by anyone with a Tower of London admission ticket. Roughly two and a half million people see it each year. None of them are allowed to touch it, photograph it, or stand particularly close to it. The crown rotates slowly on a turntable behind armoured glass.

The Palace has not announced any future plans for the diamond. The Indian, Pakistani, Iranian, and Afghan claims remain on the table and are likely to remain on the table indefinitely. The most plausible near-term scenario is that the next Queen Consort, whoever and whenever, will be crowned without it, in the same way Camilla was. Then the question can be deferred again.

What I find compelling about the Koh-i-Noor, in 2026, is not the question of who should own it. The legal and moral arguments are well-developed on every side and will not be resolved by anything I might write. What I find compelling is what the diamond reveals about how empires actually work. Cultural objects move with power. They come to rest where the power is strongest. They are wept over, retrospectively, by the cultures that lost them, and they are quietly polished, prospectively, by the cultures that hold them. The Koh-i-Noor has been a Mughal jewel, a Persian war prize, an Afghan inheritance, a Sikh armband, a Victorian brooch, and a British coronation stone. It will be whatever the next dominant power asks it to be.

For the moment, it is in a vitrine in Tower Hamlets.

Frequently asked questions

Where is the Koh-i-Noor diamond now?

The Koh-i-Noor is held in the Jewel House at the Tower of London, set in Queen Mary's Crown of 1911. It is on continuous public display behind armoured glass and is viewed by approximately 2.5 million visitors each year.

How big is the Koh-i-Noor diamond?

The Koh-i-Noor is currently 105.6 carats, in an oval brilliant cut. It was substantially larger before its recutting in 1852, with a pre-cut weight of 186 carats. The original rough stone, before its Mughal-era cutting, may have weighed over 700 carats, though earlier weights are uncertain.

Why is the Koh-i-Noor considered cursed?

Folkloric belief, with roots in the Mughal period and possibly earlier, holds that the Koh-i-Noor brings misfortune to male rulers but is safe for women. This belief may explain why every British monarch since Victoria has placed the diamond in the crown of their female consort rather than wearing it themselves. The historical record of male owners of the diamond does include a notable pattern of assassination, deposition, and violent death, though correlation is not, of course, causation.

Who currently owns the Koh-i-Noor diamond?

The Koh-i-Noor is the property of the British Crown, held as part of the Crown Jewels. It was formally acquired by Queen Victoria in 1850 under the terms of the Treaty of Lahore of 1849.

Does India own the Koh-i-Noor diamond?

India does not currently own or possess the Koh-i-Noor. The Indian government has formally requested return on multiple occasions since 1947 and the question remains diplomatically active, but the British Crown retains legal possession.

Why did Queen Camilla not wear the Koh-i-Noor at the 2023 coronation?

The Palace did not provide an official explanation, but the decision is widely understood to reflect diplomatic sensitivity around the active repatriation claims from India, Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan. Camilla wore Queen Mary's Crown of 1911 with the Koh-i-Noor replaced by three stones from the Cullinan diamond.

How did the Koh-i-Noor get its name?

The name Koh-i-Noor means "Mountain of Light" in Persian and is widely attributed to Nader Shah of Persia, who acquired the diamond after his invasion of Delhi in 1739. Whether Nader Shah literally coined the name on first seeing the stone is contested by historians, but the name dates from this period.

Related reading

Sources: Royal Collection Trust documentation on the Koh-i-Noor and Queen Mary's Crown; William Dalrymple and Anita Anand, Koh-i-Noor: The History of the World's Most Infamous Diamond (Bloomsbury, 2017), the definitive modern account; Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, Travels in India (1676), for the seventeenth-century Mughal accounts; British Museum Mughal collection documentation; contemporary press coverage of the 2023 coronation from The Guardian, The Times, and the BBC. Photography references: Royal Collection Trust, British Museum archive, Tower of London.

Florence is the founding editor of The Gem.