Diamond is the purest of natural materials.
The word diamond derives from the Latin diamas, "unconquerable magnet", from adamasto and the Greek adamas: unconquerable, inflexible, unshakeable.
The term initially qualified an unconquerable state of mind before referring to the hardest metals with which weapons and instruments of the gods were forged.
Historically, the first diamonds were extracted 3,000 years ago in India.
It is represented as the "fruit of the stars" or originating from sacred sources.
Buddhist texts reveal all its symbolism, Diamond Sutra, the truth, eternal.
In Egypt, Greece, and ancient Rome, it was considered chemically indestructible and represented the "tears of God".
It is worn as an amulet to which the virtue of being an anti-poison is attributed; diamond powder is used in glyptics (the art of engraving stone).
In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, it was worn at the top of crowns or as a pendant.
The diamond trade redeveloped with the Age of Discovery, which saw the opening of the Indian route by Europeans, the maritime republics gradually gaining a monopoly on spices, and the Republic of Venice becoming the center of diamond trade in the West.
In 1866, in Hopetown, 120 kilometers south of Kimberley (South Africa), the EUREKA diamond was discovered. This region, rich in diamond mines, gave birth in 1888 to De Beers, the largest diamond company in the world.
It was not until the mid-20th century that chemists succeeded in manufacturing it. Since then, diamond has become an industrial material whose annual production today reaches 570 million carats, or 114 tons (2007 figures).
In 1932, Gabrielle Chanel launched the "Bijoux de diamants" collection in which she removed the parure, with diamonds mounted on platinum.
She was the first to desacralize diamond by imagining costume jewelry (fake jewelry mixed with real).
In September 2012, Russia made public the existence of an unparalleled diamond deposit, kept secret for 40 years.
Located in Popigai, it was discovered in the early 1970s in an uninhabited area of Eastern Siberia. It is believed to be 110 times larger than the world's diamond reserves.
Natural Diamonds
Geologically, diamonds come from the depths of the Earth.
About 3 billion years ago, under the effect of extreme temperatures and colossal pressures, liquid carbon located under the Earth's mantle at a depth of 200 km transformed, crystallized, and formed rough diamonds.
Their growth requires 1 to 3.3 billion years (between 25 and 75% of the Earth's age). Diamonds are brought to the surface by magma from deep volcanic eruptions, which cools to form volcanic rock containing the diamonds.
Diamond is the hardest natural material (with a maximum index of 10 on the Mohs scale) and has very high thermal conductivity.
Its properties mean that diamond finds many applications in industry as cutting and machining tools, in science as scalpels or diamond anvils, and in jewelry for its optical properties.