Brilliants - Diamonds in a special cut.

When unraveling the secrets of the king of minerals, the diamond always has a particular aura of glamour. Even during the ancient times, Plinius described it as the king of all stones, and the most precious of all. In these times, diamonds were so rare that only a very few could wear them. In 1283, King Louis XI passed a law according to which it was forbidden for non aristocrats to wear diamonds. From that time until the 14th century, jewelers were forbidden to process the stone. The diamonds were positioned on their base in their natural shape, thus showing an internal, discreet shine. The new queens of our times are the super stars of the scene and the movies, women of high society enjoying luxurious treats, who many dream of and very few can obtain, in the form of unique diamond jewellery. Diamond jewellery plays and important part for Audrey Hepburn, Halle Berry, Marilyn Monroe, Madonna, Liz Taylor, or Jennifer Lopez. Stars shine wearing their diamonds at the Oscar ceremonies, MTV Awards, different film festivals thorough the world, and even behind the cameras. The famous phrase “diamonds are a girl’s best friend’ could not be truer. Obtaining such a stone is nowadays an economically feasible luxury for most. Diamond jewellery has a higher demand than before, while a 50% of worldly business turnover is based on this jewellery. The cost of the stone in the rough importantly rises every year while the newcoming elite of China and Russia show off their new wealth with this unique stone, a true natural miracle. When buying this unique stone, one must and should know with certainty that this unique and authentic product has been produced without harming nature or man and has under no circumstances whatsoever been manufactured or improved by any technical processing.These cases have attracted to attention of the whole world, even more after the film “Blood Diamond’. During a few years the industry has initialized action in order the minimize the phenomenon of violence, using the Kimberley Process with great success, and managing to minimize the amount of diamonds coming from controversial areas to 1% of the world market today! As a conclusion I would like to refer promptly to the elements playing a fundamental part in the uniqueness of the specific crystal. Million years ago, the expensive stone was created by incomparable pressures at very high temperatures and great depths, and rose to the surface through rare and still unclear geological procedures, located inside a rare and idiomorphic mineral known as kimberlite. In situations of high temperatures and mostly high pressures, the carbon composing the diamond creates a very strong chemical linkage, known as covalent bonds. This turns the structural unit of the diamond to a very stable and rigid network, which is why diamonds are so very hard and have a high melting point. This is a first simplistic yet completely authentic explanation to why diamond is the champion of hardness. Concerning his rarity, the explanations are even more admirable. Experiments and geological formations which contain diamonds prove the incredible depth from where it originates. As exaggerated as it sounds, the depths of diamond formations range from 80 to 220 klm from the earth surface. The most admirable is the way it is released and how such an amount of free carbon can be accumulated at these depths. This is something that has yet to be defined, while some teams of researchers have made assumptions through theory or experiments in order to explain the existence of free carbon in these depths through the boundaries of the lithosphere, without reaching to any certified conclusions. We must not forget that there is another mineral that is completely composed of carbon, graphite. Crystallized in milder situations, which do not permit the existence of a strong chemical linkage and a covalent bond, it therefore turns not only less hard that the diamond, but it also becomes one of the softest minerals. One could say that nature herself has named this crystal as an unquestionable emperor of precious stones. Diamonds are used on every base of metal, with platinum being the most common, pink and red gold as a new fashion, or, of course, beautifully contrasting with the classic appeal of yellow gold! Another unique advantage of this stone besides its hardness is the very high level of luminosity teamed with a generous iridescence of colors, completing the amazing shine of the king of stones, which is 400% harder that the second hardest material of the planet, the corundum. This amazing property is what gave the stone its name, from the Greek word Adamas (aubeatable). The diamond is a self sown stone since it is composed of only one element, carbon, and if cut properly has the ability to reflect the whole percent of light coming through it, dividing it in elemental colours, which offer us a wonderful reflection of light during the rotation of the stone. These are the reasons why the light of the diamond is allowed to escape through each corner of the stone giving life to the stone as much as to the jewel. The stone is rare enough for all the processable diamonds that have been extracted thorough the history of humanity barely enough to fill a two-storey red bus, identical to the ones used in London. (by gemologist Spyros Triantafyllos at the exhibition “ Precious Stones - precious relationships” / Imaret 06/04/2009/ held by “Antigoni jewellery”)