It is said to be unlucky for men to wear the Koh-i-Noor diamond owing to its long and bloody history. Mughal was found is stone. Kohinoor means the mountain of light, and Its name is derived from the Persian word Koh-i-Noor. Mohammed shah Rangila has the master of this precious diamond in the 18th century. Its magnanimous traits and size make it the most desirable precious stone. Kohinoor was originally 793 carats when uncut which makes the biggest diamond in the world. Mined in Kollur Mine, India, during the period of the Delhi Sultanate, there is no record of its original weight – but the earliest well-attested weight is 186 old carats (191 metric carats or 38.2 g). The diamond was part of the Mughal Peacock Throne. It changed hands between various factions in south and west Asia, until being ceded to Queen Victoria after the British annexation of Punjab in 1849.

Originally, the stone was of a similar cut to other Mughal-era diamonds, like the Darya-i-Noor, which are now in the Iranian Crown Jewels. In 1851, it went on display at the Great Exhibition in London, but the lackluster cut failed to impress viewers. Prince Albert, the husband of Queen Victoria, ordered it to be re-cut as an oval brilliant by Coster Diamonds. By modern standards, the culet is unusually broad, giving the impression of a black hole when the stone is viewed head-on; it is nevertheless regarded by gemologists as “full of life”.

in the past, there are many kings and the Mughals fought for Kohinoor, firstly Babur, the Turco-Mongol founder of the Mughal Empire, wrote about a “famous” diamond that weighed just over 187 old carats – approximately the size of the 186-carat Koh-i-Noor. Some historians think Babur’s diamond is the earliest reliable reference to the Koh-i-Noor. According to his diary, it was acquired by Alauddin Khalji, the second ruler of the Khalji dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate. Babur received the diamond in 1526 as a tribute for his conquest of Delhi and Agra at the Battle of Panipat. Shah Jahan, the fifth Mughal emperor, had the stone placed into his ornate Peacock Throne. In 1658, his son and successor, Aurangzeb, confined the ailing emperor to Agra Fort. While in the possession of Aurangzeb, it was allegedly cut by Hortense Borgia, a Venetian lapidary, reducing the weight of the large stone to 186 carats. For this carelessness, Borgia was reprimanded and fined 10,000 rupees.

In 1739 invasion of Delhi by Nadir Shah, the Afsharid Shah of Persia, the treasury of the Mughal Empire was looted by his army in an organized and thorough acquisition of the Mughal nobility’s wealth. Along with millions of rupees and an assortment of historic jewels, the Shah also carried away the Koh-i-Noor. After Nadir Shah was killed and his empire collapsed in 1747, the Koh-i-Noor fell to his grandson, who in 1751 gave it to Ahmad Shah Durrani, founder of the Afghan Empire, in return for his support. One of Ahmed’s descendants, Shuja Shah Durrani, wore a bracelet containing the Koh-i-Noor on the occasion of Mountstuart Elphinstone’s visit to Peshawar in 1808. A year later, Shuja formed an alliance with the United Kingdom to help defend against a possible invasion of Afghanistan by Russia. He was quickly overthrown but fled with the diamond to Lahore, where Ranjit Singh, founder of the Sikh Empire, in return for his hospitality, insisted upon the gem being given to him, and he took possession of it in 1813.

Ranjit Singh had the diamond examined by jewelers of Lahore for two days to ensure that Shuja had not tricked him. After the jewelers confirmed its genuineness, he donated 125,000 rupees to Shuja. Ranjit Singh then asked the principal jewelers of Amritsar to estimate the diamond’s value; the jewelers declared that the value of the diamond was “far beyond all computation”. Ranjit Singh then fixed the diamond in the front of his turban and paraded on an elephant to enable his subjects to see the diamond.

On 29 March 1849, following the conclusion of the Second Anglo-Sikh War, the Kingdom of Punjab was formally annexed to Company rule, and the Last Treaty of Lahore was signed, officially ceding the Koh-i-Noor to Queen Victoria and the Maharaja’s other assets to the company. Article III of the treaty read: “The gem called the Koh-i-Noor, which was taken from Shah Sooja-ool-moolk by Maharajah Ranjeet Singh, shall be surrendered by the Maharajah of Lahore to the Queen of England. On 1 February 1850, the jewel was sealed in a small iron safe inside a red dispatch box, both sealed with red tape and a wax seal and kept in a chest at Bombay Treasury awaiting a steamer ship from China. It was then sent to England for presentation to Queen Victoria in the care of Captain J. Ramsay and Brevet Lt. Col F. Mackeson under tight security arrangements, one of which was the placement of the dispatch box in a larger iron safe. They departed from Bombay on 6 April on board HMS Medea, captained by Captain Lockyer.