Koh-I-Noor

The first comprehensive and authoritative history of the Koh-i-Noor, arguably the most celebrated and mythologised jewel in the world.

On 29 March 1849, the ten-year-old Maharajah of the Punjab was ushered into the magnificent Mirrored Hall at the centre of the great Fort in Lahore. There, in a public ceremony, the frightened but dignified child handed over great swathes of the richest country in India in a formal Act of Submission to a private corporation, the East India Company. He was also compelled to hand over to the British monarch, Queen Victoria, perhaps the single most valuable object on the subcontinent: the celebrated Koh-i Noor diamond. The Mountain of Light.

The history of the Koh-i-Noor that was then commissioned by the British may have been one woven together from gossip of Delhi bazaars, but it was to be become the accepted version. Only now is it finally challenged, freeing the diamond from the fog of mythology that has clung to it for so long. The resulting history is one of greed, murder, torture, colonialism and appropriation told through an impressive slice of south and central Asian history. It ends with the jewel in its current controversial setting: in the crown of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.

Masterly, powerful and erudite, this is history at its most compelling and invigorating.

Prima istorie cuprinzatoare si autoritara a Koh-i-Noor, probabil cea mai celebrata si mitificata bijuterie din lume. La 29 martie 1849, Maharajahul din Punjab, in varsta de zece ani, a fost introdus in magnifica sala cu oglinzi din centru. a marelui Fort din Lahore. Acolo, intr-o ceremonie publica, copilul inspaimantat, dar demn, a predat mari portiuni din cea mai bogata tara din India intr-un Act formal de depunere catre o corporatie privata, Compania Indiilor de Est.