Kollur Mine was a series of gravel-clay pits on the south bank of the Krishna River in the

Golconda Sultanate The Qutb Shahi dynasty also called as Golconda Sultanate ( Persian: ''Qutb Shāhiyān'' or ''Sultanat-e Golkonde'') was a Persianate Shia Islam dynasty of Turkoman origin that ruled the sultanate of Golkonda in southern India. After the col ...

of India. It currently falls within the state of

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (, abbr. AP) is a state in the south-eastern coastal region of India. It is the seventh-largest state by area covering an area of and tenth-most populous state with 49,386,799 inhabitants. It is bordered by Telangana to the ...

. It is thought to have produced many large

diamonds Diamond is a solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Another solid form of carbon known as graphite is the chemically stable form of carbon at room temperature and pressure, ...

, known as Golconda diamonds, several of which are or have been a part of crown jewels. The mine was established in the 16th century and operated until the 19th century.

History

Kollur Mine operated between the 16th and mid-19th centuries, and was one of the largest and most productive diamond mines on the

Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a physiographical region in Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian Ocean from the Himalayas. Geopolitically, it includes the countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, In ...

. At the height of production, around 30,000 – 60,000 people worked there, including men, women, and children of all ages. Kollur itself had a population of around 100,000. Golconda mines were owned by the king, but operation was leased to diamond merchants, either foreigners or Indians of the goldsmith caste. As well as rent, the king also received 2% from sales and he was entitled to keep all diamonds weighing over 10 carats. Mining at Kollur was crude, labour-intensive, and dangerous. Miners wore

loincloth A loincloth is a one-piece garment, either wrapped around itself or kept in place by a belt. It covers the genitals and, at least partially, the buttocks. Loincloths which are held up by belts or strings are specifically known as breechcloth or ...

s, slept in huts covered with straw, and were often given food instead of money. The pit walls had no timber supports and caved in after heavy rains, killing dozens of men at a time (women and children worked above ground). The area was evacuated in the 2000s to make way for the Pulichinthala irrigation project and is submerged by of water for most of the year.

Geology

The gravel-clay pits were a maximum depth of due to the high

water table The water table is the upper surface of the zone of saturation. The zone of saturation is where the pores and fractures of the ground are saturated with water. It can also be simply explained as the depth below which the ground is saturated. T ...

. The diamond-bearing seam was approximately thick. Alluvial workings covered an area long and between and wide. It was bounded to the east by an outcrop of the Nallamala Hills and to the north and west by a

meander A meander is one of a series of regular sinuous curves in the channel of a river or other watercourse. It is produced as a watercourse erodes the sediments of an outer, concave bank ( cut bank) and deposits sediments on an inner, convex ban ...

of the River Krishna. Most of the pits have since been filled up with scree, boulders, and eluvium from neighbouring hillsides.

Notable finds

The

Tavernier Blue The Tavernier Blue was the precursor diamond to the Blue Diamond of the French Crown (aka the French Blue). Subsequently, most scholars and historians believe that it was re-cut and, after a disappearance and reemergence into the public forum, w ...

diamond was purchased by

Jean-Baptiste Tavernier Jean-Baptiste Tavernier (1605–1689) was a 17th-century French gem merchant and traveler. Tavernier, a private individual and merchant traveling at his own expense, covered, by his own account, 60,000 leagues in making six voyages to Persia ...

from the Kollur Mine in the mid-17th century.

King Louis XIV , house = Bourbon , father = Louis XIII , mother = Anne of Austria , birth_date = , birth_place = Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France , death_date = , death_place = Palace of Ver ...

of France bought the diamond from Tavernier, but it was stolen during the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are conside ...

; it reappeared and has been re-cut as the Hope Diamond. Other diamonds thought to have originated at Kollur include the

Koh-i-Noor The Koh-i-Noor ( ; from ), also spelled Kohinoor and Koh-i-Nur, is one of the largest cut diamonds in the world, weighing . It is part of the Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom. The diamond is currently set in the Crown of Queen Elizabeth The ...

, the Great Mogul, the Wittelsbach-Graff, the

Regent A regent (from Latin : ruling, governing) is a person appointed to govern a state '' pro tempore'' (Latin: 'for the time being') because the monarch is a minor, absent, incapacitated or unable to discharge the powers and duties of the monarchy ...

, the

Daria-i-Noor The Daria-i-Noor ( fa, , lit=Sea of light), also spelled ''Darya-ye Noor'', is one of the largest cut diamonds in the world, weighing an estimated 182 carats (36 g). Its colour, pale pink, is one of the rarest to be found in diamonds. The diamond ...

, the Orlov, the

Nizam The Nizams were the rulers of Hyderabad from the 18th through the 20th century. Nizam of Hyderabad (Niẓām ul-Mulk, also known as Asaf Jah) was the title of the monarch of the Hyderabad State ( divided between the state of Telangana, Mar ...

, the

Dresden Green The Dresden Green Diamond, also known as the Dresden Green, is a natural green diamond, originated in the mines of India. The Dresden Green is a rare Type IIa, with a clarity of VS1 and it is said to be potentially internally flawless, if sli ...

, the Nassak.

Location and maps

Kollur Mine's location on the south bank of Krishna River is indicated at latitude 16° 42' 30" N and longitude 80° 5' E on several maps created in the 17th and 18th centuries. All memory of its position was lost, until it was rediscovered in the 1880s by Valentine Ball, a geologist who helped to create this map of Golconda mines. In his annotated English edition of gem merchant

's book ''Travels in India'' (1676), Ball notes that ruins of houses and mine workings could still be found at Kollur. In the 1960s, Kollur Mine was pinpointed more accurately as being due north-east of Kollur village on the south bank of River Krishna at latitude 16° 43' N and longitude 80° 02' E, and extending for all the way up to Pulichinthala village. File:Golconda Diamond Mines 2.jpg, Golconda diamond mines map (left) with locations of mines File:Golconda Diamond Mines 1.jpg, Golconda diamond mines map (right) with map key File:Diamond Fields of India.jpg, 1904 map of diamond fields in India

Notes

References

External links

{{Coord, 16, 43, N, 80, 02, E, type:landmark_region:IN-AP, display=title Diamond mines in India Geography of Guntur district Mining in Andhra Pradesh Former mines in India