Some citizens of South Africa are angrily demanding the United Kingdom to return the “Star of Africa”.
The ‘Star of Africa’ is the world’s largest diamond, which is set in the royal scepter that King Charles III will hold at his coronation on Saturday, 6 May.
The 530-carat diamond, which was dubbed ‘Star of Africa’ was discovered in South Africa in the year 1905.
Unearthed in a South Africa mine in 1905 and weighing 3,106 carats, the Cullinan—named after Thomas Cullinan, the chairman of the mining company—still holds the title of the largest diamond ever found.
The second largest, the 1,758-carat Sewelo, was discovered in Botswana in 2019 and now belongs to Louis Vuitton.
According to jewelry lore, the uncut rock was so unfathomably enormous—and marked by such exceptional clarity and a unique blue and white tint—that the mine’s manager initially dismissed it for a crystal and threw it out the window.
Obviously, a second look would turn out to be highly judicious, though it took some time for the rough stone to be transformed into the nine dazzling diamonds (and about a hundred smaller brilliants) that are now among the royal family’s most valuable jewels.
It was eventually presented to the British Monarchy by the colonial government in the country two years later, as the country was under British rule at that time.
Recently some European countries have been returning artefacts to African countries they colonized.
Germany recently returned artefacts to Edo state, Finland returned Namibia’s Power Stone, and this has prompted some South Africans to ask for the diamond to be brought back.
Mothusi Kamanga, a Johannesburg based lawyer who wrote an online petition that has amassed about 8,000 signatures, said to Reuters.
“The diamond needs to come to South Africa. It needs to be a sign of our pride, our heritage and our culture…I think generally the African people are starting to realise that to decolonise is not just to let people have certain freedoms, but it’s also to take back what has been expropriated from us.”
Another South African, Mohamed Abdullahi, said to the publication: “I believe it should be brought back home because, at the end of the day, they took it from us while they were oppressing us.”
The diamond on the scepter, officially known as Cullinan I, was cut from the 3,100-carat Cullinan diamond, which was mined close to Pretoria.
The Imperial State Crown that British monarchs don on ceremonial occasions is set with a smaller diamond cut from the same stone known as Cullinan II.
It is stored at the Tower of London with the other crown jewels and the scepter.
