“The Enigma”, the mysterious black diamond of 555.55 carats

The mysterious black diamond “The Enigma” with a staggering weight of 555.55 carats will be auctioned at Sotheby’s. Discovery of this rare diamond.

At Sotheby’s auction house, this black diamond “The Enigma” is an exceptional sale that will begin on February 3 and end on February 9, 2022. The house said it is the largest known faceted black diamond appearing at auction and was listed as the world’s largest cut diamond in the 2006 Guinness Book of World Records. It has no less than 55 facets and weighs 555.5 carats. Online bids are expected to reach several million euros, and the house is also making it known that crypto-currencies will be accepted for payment of the diamond.

A diamond that could be formed in space

Also known as carbonado diamond, it is possible that this black diamond came from outer space. Carbonados of this structure have so far only been found in Brazil and the Central African Republic, and scientists have long theorized about their origin.

According to the magazine Futura Science, this kind of diamond would not have been born on Earth, at moderate pressures and temperatures, but in a much more exotic environment. Indeed, the combination of the composition of carbonados and the knowledge of the thermochemical processes capable of producing them strongly suggest that carbonaceous matter in a molecular and dusty interstellar cloud was compressed and heated by the shock wave of a supernova explosion. The carbonados would then have been incorporated in the matter of the oldest meteorites formed in the protoplanetary disk of the Solar System.

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“They’re shrouded in mystery as to where they came from or how they were formed, because we don’t find many of them on Earth,” geologist Aaron Celestian, curator of mineral sciences at the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles, told Reuters on Wednesday. “We think they may have formed very deep inside the Earth, much deeper than what we already know about diamonds. There are hypotheses that suggest they formed at impact sites where a large asteroid hit the Earth” .

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The Enigma has never been exhibited before and is expected to be sold for between $4 and $7 million. Its owner has owned it for two decades, but little is known about its history before that.

The diamond, which was displayed in Dubai last week, was shown in Beverly Hills this week before returning to London for the auction at Sotheby’s on February 3.

Hélène Cougot

Passionnée depuis son plus jeune âge par l’art et la mode, Hélène s’oriente vers une école de stylisme, l’Atelier Chardon-Savard à Paris, avec une option Communication. Afin d’ajouter des cordes à son arc, elle décide de compléter sa formation par un MBA en Management du Luxe et Marketing Expérientiel à l’Institut Supérieur de Gestion à Paris dont elle sort diplômée en 2020. Elle a notamment écrit des articles lifestyle et beauté pour le magazine Do it in Paris et se spécialise en rédaction d’articles concernant le luxe, l’art et la mode au sein du magazine Luxus Plus.********** [EN] Passionate about art and fashion from a young age, Hélène went to a fashion design school, Atelier Chardon-Savard in Paris, with a Communication option. In order to add more strings to her bow, she decided to complete her education with an MBA in Luxury Management and Experiential Marketing at the Institut Supérieur de Gestion in Paris from which she graduated in 2020. She has written lifestyle and beauty articles for Do it in Paris magazine and specializes in writing articles about luxury, art and fashion for Luxus Plus magazine.