“I am lucky to have seen it in my time,” Botswana’s president Mokgweetsi Masisi said
Monirul Bhuiyan/AFP/Getty
Botswana’s President Mokgweetsi Masisi holds a large diamond
The largest diamond to be unearthed in more than a century has been found in Botswana, a country in Southern Africa.
Botswana’s president, Mokgweetsi Masisi, and William Lamb, President and CEO of Lucara Diamond Corp. — the Canadian mining company that found the precious stone — announced the discovery on Thursday, Aug. 22.
Monirul Bhuiyan/AFP/Getty
large diamond discovered in Botswana, August 2024
In a press release, Lucara called the find “remarkable,” adding that the 2,492-carat diamond is “one of the largest rough diamonds ever unearthed.”
The company found the jewel in Botswana’s Karowe Diamond Mine by using “X-ray Transmission (XRT) technology, installed in 2017 to identify and preserve large, high-value diamonds.”
Related: The Real Story Behind How the World’s Largest Rough Diamond Was Cut for the Queen’s Crown Jewels
The diamond, which has yet to be named, is the second-largest to be discovered since the 3,106-carat Cullinan Diamond was found 119 years ago in South Africa in 1905, CNN reported.
“It is overwhelming,” Masisi said, per the Associated Press. “I am lucky to have seen it in my time.”
Monirul Bhuiyan/AFP/Getty
Botswana’s President Mokgweetsi Masisi looks at a large diamond discovered in Botswana at his office in Gaborone on August 22, 2024
As senior government officials got a chance to marvel at the sight, Masisi couldn’t help but to add, “Wow.”
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According to CNN and the AP, no price point has been set for the recent find. However, a significantly smaller diamond found in the same Botswana mine was sold in 2016 for $63 million, an unprecedented price.
“This is history in the making,” Naseem Lahri, Botswana’s managing director for Lucara Diamond Corp., said. “I am very proud. It is a product of Botswana.”
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While it remains too early to tell the fate of Botswana’s second-largest diamond, the Cullinan Diamond was cut into gems, with some becoming parts of the British Crown Jewels.
Diamonds are formed when carbon atoms are squeezed together under high pressure deep underground, notes the AP. Scientists say most diamonds are at least a billion years old and some of them are more than 3 billion years old.
In the late 1800s, a notable diamond discovery was also a larger, but less pure black diamond found in Brazil. Per the AP, the gem was “found above ground and was believed to have been part of a meteorite.”
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