Botswana President Mokgweetsi Masisi holds a 2,492-carat diamond that was unearthed at one of the country’s mines and will be displayed on Thursday, August 22, 2024, in Gaborone.
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GABORONE, Botswana — The largest diamond found in more than a century has been unearthed at a mine in Botswana, and the country’s president unveiled the fist-sized stone to the world at a ceremony Thursday.
The Botswana government said the giant 2,492-carat diamond is the second-largest ever discovered in a mine. It is the largest diamond found since 1905.
The yet-to-be-named diamond was unveiled to the world at the office of Botswana President Mokgweetsi Masisi. It weighs about half a kilogram and Masisi was one of the first people to hold it.
“It was overwhelming,” Masisi said. “I was lucky to see it in my time.” He gasped and said “wow” before calling senior government officials in to take a closer look.
Officials said it was too early to value the stone or decide how to sell it. Another smaller diamond from the same mine in Botswana sold for $63 million in 2016, a record for a rough gemstone.
“This is history in the making,” said Naseem Lahri, Botswana chief executive of Lucara Diamond Corp., the Canadian mining company that found the diamond. “I am very proud. This is a product of Botswana.”
Lucara said in a statement Wednesday that it had recovered the “exceptional” rough diamond from its Karowe Mine in central Botswana. Lucara said the stone was “high quality” and found intact. It was located using X-ray technology designed to find large, valuable diamonds.
“We are extremely pleased to have found this exceptional 2,492-carat diamond,” Lucara Chairman and CEO William Lamb said in a statement.
At this weight, it would be the largest diamond found in 119 years and the second largest ever dug out of a mine after the Cullinan Diamond discovered in South Africa in 1905. The famous Cullinan Diamond weighed 3,106 carats and was cut into several gemstones, some of which are part of the British Crown Jewels.
A larger, less pure black diamond was discovered in Brazil in the late 1800s, but it was found on the ground and is believed to be part of a meteorite.
Botswana, a country of 2.6 million people in southern Africa, is the second largest producer of natural diamonds after Russia and All the world’s largest stones have been excavated in recent years. The Karowe mine has produced four other diamonds weighing more than 1,000 carats in the past decade.
Prior to this discovery, the Sewelo diamond, found at the Karowe Mine in 2019, was recognized as the world’s second-largest mined diamond at 1,758 carats. It was purchased by French fashion house Louis Vuitton for an undisclosed sum.
The 1,111-carat Lesedi La Rona diamond, also from Botswana’s Karowe mine, was bought by a British jeweler for $53 million in 2017. Another diamond from Karowe, The Constellation, sold for a record $63 million.
Diamonds are formed when carbon atoms are forced together under high pressure deep underground. Scientists say most diamonds are at least a billion years old, and some are more than 3 billion years old.
