The story of diamonds: shining facets of thousands of pages

The story of diamonds: shining facets of thousands of pages
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History Of Diamonds More than half a century diamonds called best friends girls about them continue to compose songs, and their dazzling light still captivates the hearts of women and men's wallets easier. Who would have thought that once were considered second-class diamond stones in jewelry and valued far less than rubies or emeralds. It is a time long gone and been replaced by time to first diamond and then diamond fever. The history of diamonds - a multi-page story describing a curious shift from ignoring to complete worship.

A sample of the purest delights

Do not confuse a diamond and diamond - it's not the same, but one is a "parent" for the other. There is a steady expression "like rough diamonds", it is often used to describe a person of pure, having no experience of untouched negative influences of the world. When he finds a quality faceting, it starts figuratively shine all its facets. That is, it is a genuine diamond. These metaphors can be considered as a direct guide to understanding the essence of rough and polished diamonds.

Rough diamonds - it is not a diamond, it gets them, having the proper treatment that will reveal the full potential of the stone, allowing it to become the protagonist of expensive jewelry. This fact is well reflected in the history of diamonds: as long as people have not learned good bounding the natural stones, diamonds are not valued as highly as it is today. And all because of the lack of glitz and game faces, transparency, pure spring water, which is mixed with rays of light.

Journey to the West

The first deposit of natural diamonds was India, which has always attached great importance to jewelry with stones. The first Indian jewelers bounding the diamonds, which later were decorated with statues of the gods. In 327 BC, Alexander the Great, to travel from India to Europe, brought back and diamonds, which are highly appreciated, but which were very far from today's status. Later diamonds continued to import from Asia (China, India, Malaysia and other regions) in the European traders.

In the Middle Ages it was possible to speak of the diamond rush of European importance, which became the center of Venice. In the thirteenth century in the Italian city of the start skyrocketing develop glass industry. The Venetians were able to process glass, making him a real work of art, and the famous Venetian merchants, diamonds zavezshie Italy, opened a new page in the history of both the city and diamonds. By 1330, Venice jewelers began to polish and cut diamonds in their methodology, which later they have borrowed in France and Belgium.

In the fifteenth century way of cutting and polishing of diamonds to be converted into precious diamonds perfected in Northern Europe - for this was the use of special machines. In 1477, King Maximilian of Austria gave his future wife Mary of Burgundy a diamond ring as a token of betrothal. Was put tradition that as a way of declarations of love Declarations of love - a cherished phrase still used throughout the world.

African history

Until the beginning of the eighteenth century, India continued to be the largest supplier of rough diamonds for the European production of diamonds, but its monopoly ended when the first deposit has been found in Brazil. After a half-century in Kimberley (South Africa) have been discovered natural deposits of diamonds, now called kimberlite pipes. Later, they were discovered in India, then in Canada, the entire twentieth century was an intensive extraction of natural diamonds in South America.

Diamond fever marked the beginning of the modern era, which is unthinkable without the diamond jewelry as an indispensable attribute of luxury. Very soon, at the end of the nineteenth century in South Africa it was founded De Beers, which is engaged in a full cycle of a diamond - from natural or synthetic diamond development to production of jewelery from them. Diamond is Forever («Diamonds Are Forever") - this is their slogan, which tempts many generations of lovers of diamond jewelry.

New facets of jewelry

In 1919 in London, published a book a young mathematician Marcel Tolkowsky «Diamond Design». Born into a family of jewelers, Tolkowsky could not help but be interested in diamonds, but did so as an expert your field. In the eighteenth century jewelers tried to deduce the shape of the diamond, which would be the most "squeezed" out of it a dazzling play of light, but they did not succeed. Tolkowsky gave an answer to their questions, describe the shape of a perfect diamond, provides a detailed analysis of the refraction of light that falls on its face. This form is now known as "diamond Tolkowsky" and is considered the reference.

The number of facets of the ideal cut diamond increases over time. In the sixteenth century Europe used cut "rose", "double rose", "Dutch Rose." Diamonds Mazarin (on behalf of Cardinal Mazarin), appeared a century later, were thirty-four facets. A little later the Venetian jeweler Vincenzo Peruzzi has developed a complex system of cut, which has given diamonds with fifty seven facets. In the twentieth century, every form of cut established itself as a certain number of faces. Brilliant "Princess", for example, boasts a half hundreds of faces.

History of diamonds continues on the necks and fingers of women who are not indifferent to these shining gems of high value. They can be both transparent and colored - yellow, green, pink, brown. From private collections or directly from jewelry shops, many diamonds in jewelry or without them, go to the auction house where they are bought for millions of dollars. The most famous brands that produce jewelery based on diamonds: De Beers, Cartier, Tiffany & Co, Harry Winston, Graff, Steinmetz, Mouawad.