One of the world’s largest diamonds ever unearthed—a rough 2,492-carat stone—has been found in Botswana.
A Canadian mining company that discovered the gem announced the development on Thursday
The diamond was found in the Karowe Diamond Mine in northeastern Botswana, about 430 kilometres (270 miles) from the capital Gaborone.
The weight would make it the largest diamond found in more than 100 years and the second-largest ever dug out of a mine after the Cullinan Diamond discovered in South Africa in 1905.
The Cullinan was 3,106 carats and was cut into gems, some of which form part of the British Crown Jewels.
“We are ecstatic about the recovery of this extraordinary 2,492-carat diamond,” Lucara president and CEO William Lamb said in the statement.
This find was “one of the largest rough diamonds ever unearthed” and detected using the company’s Mega Diamond Recovery X-ray technology, the statement said.
A bigger black diamond was discovered in Brazil in the late 1800s, but it was found on the surface and was believed to have been part of a meteorite.
Botswana is the second biggest producer of diamonds and has unearthed all of the world’s biggest stones in recent years.
Before this discovery, the Sewelo diamond, which was found at the Karowe Mine in 2019, was recognized as the second-biggest mined diamond in the world at 1,758 carats. It was bought by French fashion house Louis Vuitton for an undisclosed amount.
The 1,111-carat Lesedi La Rona diamond, also from Botswana’s Karowe Mine, was bought by a British jeweller for $53 million in 2017.
Lucara has 100% ownership of the mine in Karowe.
Botswana’s government has proposed a law that will ask companies, once granted a license to mine, to sell a 24% stake to local firms if the government does not exercise its option of becoming a shareholder, Reuters news agency reported last month.
Meawnhile, President Mokgweetsi Masisi was due to view the massive stone later Thursday.