Object · Mughal-era diamond

Koh-i-Noor

Also known as Mountain of Light, Kohinoor

Function

Archaeology & heritage

Confidence

Established / referenced

Connections (16)

• Power passed toWarangal Fort

  The Koh-i-Noor's documented history begins with Alauddin Khalji's 1310 Siege of Warangal and the subsequent subjugation of the Kakatiya dynasty of southern India. Alauddin's court poet Amir Khusrau quotes a Kakatiya messenger describing the diamond as 'unrivaled in the world' and the 18-century Mughal chronicler Khafi Khan identifies this Kakatiya stone as the Koh-i-Noor. The Kakatiya capital at Warangal Fort was where the Delhi Sultanate forces took possession of the stone before carrying it north to Delhi.

• Power passed toHumayun

  After the 21 April 1526 First Battle of Panipat and Babur's defeat of Ibrahim Lodi, the Mughal prince Humayun captured the family of Bikramjit, the Hindu Raja of Gwalior and vassal of the defeated Lodi, who were sheltering at Agra Fort. In gratitude for Humayun's protection, Bikramjit's family presented him with the diamond. Babur recorded in his autobiography that 'the gem was so invaluable that its value could feed the whole world for a day'. The diamond entered the Mughal royal collection through this 1526 transfer at Agra.

• Located atAgra Fort

  The Koh-i-Noor was presented to Humayun at Agra after the 1526 First Battle of Panipat and became part of the Mughal royal collection housed at Agra Fort. The diamond remained in the Mughal treasury at Agra Fort through Humayun's reign (1530-1540, 1555-1556), his Iran exile (1540-1555, during which he presented the stone to Tahmasp I), and the subsequent Mughal recovery under Akbar (1556-1605), Jahangir (1605-1627) and Shah Jahan (1628-1658) until the 1739 Nader Shah invasion carried off the Mughal treasury.

• Power passed toNāder Shāh

  Nader Shah seized the Koh-i-Noor during his 1739 invasion of India after defeating Mughal emperor Muhammad Shah at the 24 February 1739 Battle of Karnal and sacking Delhi. The Persian forces carried off the Peacock Throne (into which the Koh-i-Noor had been set by Shah Jahan in 1635), the Darya-ye-Noor and approximately ₹70 crore of Mughal treasure to Iran. Muhammad Kazim Marvi's biography of Nader Shah is where the diamond is first called 'Koh-i-Noor' ('Mountain of Light'). The stone was Nader's personal possession until his 1747 assassination.

• Power passed toAhmad Shah Durrani

  After Nader Shah's 20 June 1747 assassination at Fathabad, the Koh-i-Noor passed to his Pashtun general Ahmad Shah Abdali, who established the Durrani Empire of Afghanistan the same year. The Afghan chronicle Siraj al-Tawarikh records that Nader Shah's first lady of the harem gave the diamond to Ahmad Shah; another account places the transfer in 1751 from Nader's grandson in return for Ahmad Shah's political support. The Koh-i-Noor remained in the Durrani royal collection through four generations until Shah Shuja Durrani fled with it to Lahore in 1812.

• Power passed toShah Shuja Durrani

  The Koh-i-Noor passed to Ahmad Shah Durrani's grandson Shah Shuja Durrani (ruled 1803-1809 and 1839-1842). Shah Shuja wore the diamond on a bracelet during Mountstuart Elphinstone's 1808 visit to Peshawar on behalf of the British East India Company. After being deposed by his half-brother Mahmud Shah in 1809, he fled first to Attock then to Lahore in 1812, where Maharaja Ranjit Singh of the Sikh Empire extorted the diamond from him in 1813 — reportedly by having Shuja's son tortured in front of him.

• Located atPurushapura / Peshawar

  The Koh-i-Noor was displayed by Shah Shuja Durrani on a bracelet during Mountstuart Elphinstone's 1808 British East India Company diplomatic mission to Peshawar. Elphinstone's subsequent 'Account of the Kingdom of Caubul' (1815) is the first detailed European description of the diamond's size and ownership, bringing the stone into British imperial knowledge for the first time. Peshawar at the time was the eastern winter capital of the Durrani Empire and the site of the Shah Shuja-Elphinstone treaty negotiations against possible Russian or French invasion of Afghanistan.

• Power passed toMahārāja Ranjīt Singh

  Maharaja Ranjit Singh took the Koh-i-Noor from the deposed Shah Shuja Durrani in 1813 at Lahore. Shah Shuja's memoirs state that Ranjit Singh extorted the diamond by having his son tortured in front of him; another account says Ranjit Singh demanded it in return for Shuja's safe hospitality in the Sikh Empire. Ranjit Singh had the stone examined by Lahore jewellers for two days before paying Shuja 125,000 rupees. The jewellers of Amritsar declared the diamond's value 'far beyond all computation'. Ranjit Singh then paraded on an elephant with the diamond affixed to his turban. He wore it as an armlet during Diwali and Dussehra and kept it under elaborate security at Gobindgarh Fort.

• Located atGobindgarh Fort

  Ranjit Singh kept the Koh-i-Noor at a high-security facility within Gobindgarh Fort at Amritsar when it was not being worn. The fort's inner Toshakhana treasury held the diamond under the watch of royal treasurer Misr Beli Ram. When the diamond was to be transported, it was placed in a pannier on a guarded camel; 39 other camels with identical panniers were included in the convoy; the diamond was always placed on the first camel immediately behind the guards, but great secrecy was maintained regarding which camel carried it. Only Beli Ram knew which camel actually held the stone.

• Power passed toGulab Singh

  After the 8 October 1839 coup in which Dhian Singh overthrew the new Sikh emperor Kharak Singh (Ranjit Singh's son), the Koh-i-Noor came into the possession of Dhian Singh's brother Gulab Singh, the Dogra Raja of Jammu. Gulab Singh held the stone until January 1841, when he presented it to the new emperor Sher Singh in return for a ceasefire negotiated by his brother Dhian Singh between Sher Singh and the overthrown empress Chand Kaur. Despite handing over the Koh-i-Noor, Gulab Singh returned safely to Jammu with substantial other gold and jewels from the Lahore treasury.

• Power passed toDuleep Singh

  After the 15 September 1843 assassination of Sher Singh and Dhian Singh by Ajit Singh Sandhawalia, Dhian's son Hira Singh installed the five-year-old Duleep Singh as the Sikh Empire's last Maharaja. The Koh-i-Noor was fastened to Duleep Singh's arm at the Lahore court. After the 27 March 1844 assassination of Hira Singh and the subsequent First Anglo-Sikh War (1845-46) and Second Anglo-Sikh War (1848-49), Duleep Singh was the eleven-year-old defeated Maharaja who signed the 29 March 1849 Last Treaty of Lahore surrendering the Koh-i-Noor to Queen Victoria.

• Located atLahore Fort & Shalimar

  The Koh-i-Noor was formally surrendered at Lahore Fort on 29 March 1849 under Article III of the Last Treaty of Lahore, which 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.' The lead signatory for the eleven-year-old Duleep Singh was his commander-in-chief Tej Singh. The Governor-General James Broun-Ramsay, Marquess of Dalhousie received the Koh-i-Noor from Dr John Spencer Login (Governor of the Citadel) under a receipt dated 7 December 1849 in the presence of Henry Lawrence, C.G. Mansel, John Lawrence and Henry Elliot of the Punjab Board of Administration.

• Power passed toJames Broun-Ramsay, Marquess of Dalhousie

  Governor-General James Broun-Ramsay, 1st Marquess of Dalhousie received the Koh-i-Noor from Dr John Spencer Login on 7 December 1849 under the Last Treaty of Lahore. Dalhousie believed the stone was a spoil of war rather than a Company gift, and ensured it was officially surrendered to Queen Victoria by Duleep Singh personally. Legend in the Lawrence family has it that before the voyage, John Lawrence left the jewel in his waistcoat pocket when it was sent to be laundered, and was most grateful when it was returned promptly by the valet who found it. The 1 February 1850 shipment arrangements under Dalhousie's seal made the diamond's transfer to England the most anxious operation of his career.

• Power passed toTower of London

  The Koh-i-Noor was sealed on 1 February 1850 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. It was shipped to England on 6 April 1850 aboard HMS Medea under Captain Lockyer in the care of Captain J. Ramsay and Brevet Lt. Col F. Mackeson. The ship had a difficult voyage — a cholera outbreak at Mauritius had locals demanding its departure, and a severe 12-hour gale struck shortly afterwards. The ship arrived in Britain on 29 June 1850 at Plymouth; the Koh-i-Noor stayed on board until Spithead on 1 July. On 2 July Ramsay and Mackeson travelled by train to East India House in the City of London to transfer the diamond to the chairman and deputy chairman of the East India Company.

• Power passed toQueen Victoria

  The Koh-i-Noor was formally presented to Queen Victoria on 3 July 1850 at Buckingham Palace by the deputy chairman of the East India Company. The date was chosen to coincide with the Company's 250th anniversary. The diamond was displayed at the 1851 Great Exhibition at Hyde Park where crowds found it disappointingly dull — Punch magazine called it 'the Mountain of Darkness'. On 17 July 1852 Prince Albert supervised the recut by Levie Benjamin Voorzanger of Mozes Coster's firm at Garrard & Co. in Haymarket; the 38-day recut reduced the diamond from 186 carats to 105.6 carats and cost £8,000. Victoria wore the recut stone as a brooch, though she wrote in the 1870s of her unease about Indian conquest and 'how I dislike wearing the Koh-i-Noor'. After her 1901 death the stone passed into the British Crown Jewels.

• Located atTower of London

  The Koh-i-Noor has been on display at the Jewel House, Tower of London, since 1937, set successively in the crowns of Queen Alexandra (1902), Queen Mary (1911) and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother (1937). The 2002 Queen Mother funeral saw the crown placed on top of her coffin for the lying-in-state. Queen Camilla's 6 May 2023 coronation at Westminster Abbey deliberately used Queen Mary's Crown WITHOUT the Koh-i-Noor in deference to Indian, Pakistani, Afghan and Iranian claims to the diamond's return. During the Second World War the Crown Jewels were moved from the Tower to Windsor Castle; the Koh-i-Noor was wrapped in cotton wool and placed in a glass preserving jar inside a biscuit tin in a specially dug tunnel beneath the castle walls.

On these journeys

• Journey of Koh-i-Noor

Sources

Standard reference; Wikipedia Koh-i-Noor article.

• Wikipedia — Koh-i-Noor