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The pebble, which has 55 facets and weighs 555.55 carats, was auctioned on Wednesday at Sotheby’s for 3.16 million pounds sterling.
The Enigma was purchased in the late 1990s and weighed more than 800 carats in the rough. It took more than three years to carve it into its current 55-faceted form.
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Fifty-five facets, weighing 555.55 carats (111.11 grams): the Enigma, the world’s largest natural black diamond, was auctioned on Wednesday for 3.16 million pounds sterling (3.95 million francs) in London, the auction house Sotheby’s announced.
The diamond, auctioned after an online auction that ended on Wednesday, was registered in 2004 as the world’s largest natural black diamond by specialists GIA and Gübelin and in 2006 as the world’s largest cut diamond by the Guinness Book of Records.
Unlike classic diamonds that are extracted from the bowels of the earth, black diamonds are found more on the surface evoking “possible extraterrestrial origins,” Sotheby’s points out.
From diamond-bearing asteroids
“It is believed that this type of black diamonds comes either from meteorite impacts producing a deposit of chemical vapors or from an extraterrestrial origin, from supernova explosions forming diamond-bearing asteroids that ultimately collide with the earth,” says the auction house.
They are found today exclusively in Brazil and the Central African Republic. Their structure makes these diamonds among the hardest, so that they are almost impossible to carve and polish.
The Enigma was bought in the late 1990s and weighed more than 800 carats in the rough and it took more than three years to carve it into its current 55-faceted form.
Its shape is inspired by the Hamsa, an amulet in the shape of a hand as a sign of protection against the evil eye in the Middle East.
The price record for a diamond sold at auction is held by the pink diamond “Pink Star”, which was sold for $71.2 million at Sotheby’s auctions in Hong Kong in 2017.
(AFP)