Mystery black diamond called ‘The Enigma’ goes up for auction

BEVERLY HILLS — A black diamond weighing a staggering 555.55 carats goes up for public sale at Sotheby’s and dwelling as much as its title “The Enigma.”

Bidding opens on Feb. 3 at 6 a.m. PST and closes on Feb. 9, Sotheby’s stated, including cryptocurrency will likely be accepted for cost of the diamond.

Sotheby’s stated it’s the largest faceted Fancy Black Diamond identified to ever seem at public sale and was listed as the biggest lower diamond on the planet within the 2006 Guinness Ebook of World Data.

Also referred to as a carbonado diamond, it’s doable the black diamond got here from outer area. Carbonados of this construction have solely been present in Brazil and the Central African Republic, and scientists have lengthy theorized about their origins.

“They’re shrouded in thriller as to the origin or formation as a result of there’s not that a lot of them discovered on Earth,” geologist Aaron Celestian, the curator of mineral sciences on the Pure Historical past Museum of Los Angeles, advised Reuters on Wednesday.

Celestian stated most carbonados are about 2.6 to three.2 billion years previous. As Earth itself dates again to 4.65 billion years in the past, carbonados had been shaped when Earth’s plates had been nonetheless transferring and the oxygenation of the environment was going down, he stated.

“We predict that they might have shaped tremendous deep inside the Earth’s inside, far deeper than what we all know already of diamonds. There’s hypotheses that recommend that they shaped at affect websites the place a big asteroid hit Earth,” Celestian stated.

“There’s additionally interstellar hypotheses that recommend that they grew in area after which later fell on the floor of Earth.”

The Enigma has not been exhibited earlier than and is anticipated to promote for between $4 million and $7 million. Its proprietor has had it for 20 years, however little is thought about its historical past earlier than that.

Celestian believes analysis into the diamond would inform us lots about deep-Earth mineralogy or the evolution of our photo voltaic system.

The diamond, which was exhibited in Dubai final week, was proven in Beverly Hills this week earlier than heading again to London for the public sale.