About Diamonds in Ancient History

The value and unsurpassable beauty of the diamond fits the etymology of the colorless mineral gem, meaning unconquerable and untamable.

 

The mystery which surrounds the Diamond is accentuated even in the etymology of the word itself. Acknowledged on all hands to be supreme in beauty over all gems, the manner of its production remains to this day, one of the secrets of Nature's Laboratory. Diamond in the English, and Diamant in the French, are both synonymous with Adamant, which comes directly from the Greek, meaning literally the "untamable," the "unconquerable."

 

The ancients properly estimated the character of the stone; and modern savants, who, standing upon the mountain tops of Science, have explored the sun itself, can tell us but little more of this splendid production of its creative rays, than is indicated in the Greek. It is to the cutter that we owe the revelation of its loveliness, the development of that radiance which transcends all other gems, as the graces of Venus transcend those of all the other goddesses of Olympus.

 

Although the word is found in the oldest Greek records, the substance itself was unknown in Europe until comparatively recent times. In Homer, Adamas occurs only as a personal name; in Hesiod, Pindar and the Trajics it is used as signifying either any hard weapon, or a metal, such as steel or an alloy of gold and steel. Even Theophrastus, successor of Aristotle, and author of a short treatise, still extant, on Precious Stones, makes only one casual allusion to the Adamas, which, however, cannot have meant the true Diamond, as he does not include it in his list of gems.

 

His treatise was composed 300 B.C., after which no further distinct allusion to the Diamond occurs until we come to the Latin poet and astronomer, Manilius, who flourished in the first century of the new era. In the fourth book of the poem entitled Astronamicon, by this writer, occurs the line "Sic Adamas punctum lapidis pretiosior auro," which is supposed to contain the earliest indubitable reference to the true Diamond, which is here spoken of as "more precious than gold." Some writers have doubted whether this Adamas of the Romans was anything more than a Sapphire; but the question is set at rest by the accurate description of Pliny, who was probably a contemporary of Manilius, and who speaks of the Indian gem as colorless and transparent, with polished facets and six angles, ending either as a pyramid with a sharp point, or with two points, like two whipping-tops joined together at their base. The colourless nature of the stone shows that it was not a sapphire, while the "six angles" necessarily imply the octahedron, which is the primary form of the perfectly crystallized Diamond, and suggests no resemblance to the sapphire.

 

None of the stones known to the ancients seem to have been of any importance as regards size. In the above quoted passage from Manilius, the adamas is a mere "punctum lapidis," or stone's point, and the Indian stones, the largest of which the Romans had any knowledge, are compared by Pliny to the "kernel of a hazel-nut," which would make them about 10 carats in weight. Large gems may, no doubt, have existed in India, even at that time, and a vague tradition assigns a great antiquity to the Koh-i-Nur, and some other famous historical diamonds. Only small specimens could, however, have reached the west, because the Indian princes seem in all ages to have either reserved to themselves, or at least prohibited the exportation of stones beyond a certain weight. The Portuguese writer, Garcias ab Horto, writing in the sixteenth century, states that the sovereigns claimed all gems above 30 mangelis, or 371/2 carats, and De Laet, a century later, says that stones even of 10 carats and upwards had been reserved in the old Golconda mines, then exhausted or stopped.

 

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