FGS it a useless lump of carbon, cant eat it or live in it, work out whose it is and give it back to them.

[Nimbostratus100]

This flipping Koh-i-Noor thing. I'm currently sitting looking at a prettier light bulb (and the bulb is a lot more useful)

It has zero value, except what we choose to ascribe to it.

The world would be a better place if we stopped ascribing any value to diamonds at all. A burnt chunk of charcoal is mostly exactly the same type of atoms.

Why are we keeping this clutched in our sweaty little mitts, when it matter to other people, and who ever is the rightful owner, it certainly isnt us.

Give it back to whoever would have it now if instruments of the British empire hadnt robbed them.

And if they didnt have it legally, then its up to them to pass it back or sit and gloat, and look silly, which we currently do

For goodness sake!

Well as there are arguments over which country it should go back to I think the best thing would be to recreate the final scenes of Titanic and chuck it into the sea over the Mariana Trench.

They could show it live to the world. Problem solved.

nice idea! but I guess it would just become some race between multimillionaires to see who had the biggest submersible willy vehicle to retrieve it and gloat!

History and politics innit

How could we possibly know who would have it now? The child Maharaja who it was stolen from lived eventually in England in exile and had illegitimate children here from what I've read - so surely the correct thing would be to track his descendants and give it to them?

Unfortunately a few grabby countries all think it should be theirs. Try telling them that a light bulb is prettier and that it's only worth what we ascribe to it (between 140 and 400 million dollars in case you're wondering).

I think diamonds can be pretty useful on the tips of drills, maybe someone can find a use for it?

I was thinking it terms of return it to a country, rather than a private individual....

I dont actually agree its worth hundreds of millions of dollars, becasue no one is going to pay that for it, are they

The Koh I Noor was being scrapped over well before the British became involved.

yes! perfect answer! donate to united nations planetary defence programme with stipulation to be used purely on space craft for scientific instruments.

That is genius

in scientific instruments and tools, diamonds do have a real and true actual value

well done @ThreeFeetTall !

centuries of bloodshed, robbery, fighting, diplomacy and controversy, solved in a single MN post!

yet we still end up being the idiots with egg all over our faces and diamond in our hands when the music stops!

What about the Elgin marbles and the mummies at the British museum? Curious to see if people think those should be returned to?

I'm also intrigued by the use of the phrase 'grubby countries' here given the centuries of 'grubby and grabby' behaviour of the West in Asia and Africa...

some, undoubtably, case by case, if something precious has been robbed, then yes. If something has been bought and paid for from a legal owner in a legal transaction, then probably no

The Koh - i - Noor thing though, is different, in that literally isnt anything other than a lump of carbon. It isnt even really a cultural artifact as such, its literally just a lump of carbon

Yes but clearly you can see that it's symbolic value is more than that of a lump of carbon. I'm the Elgin marbles are also lumps of stones and the mummies at the British museum are dead people wrapped up. Intriguing to note that the South Asian states of India, Pakistan or Afghanistan have NEVER formally asked for the Kohinoor back, (unlike the Greeks over the Elgin marbles). The Indian SC in fact ruled that the Kohinoor was transferred as a result of a treaty that was legal at that time.

So back to the 'grubby countries' allegation. Can we please clarify which specifically grubby countries (not random people on the interwebs) have asked for it back?!

If we gave back some of the African artifacts, they'd be sold into private collections by corrupt leaders and the money would be stolen. In theory things should be returned, but when you consider what's been lost in war and natural disasters, what's been distributed because it wasn't stored properly, I'm not so sure. Controversial opinion, I know. We've lost two Banksy's in Liverpool, both sold to a private collector and they should have stayed in public ownership.

Why? Because Africans are more corrupt than people in other parts of the world? I've been to the Egyptian museum in Cairo- they do an amazing job of displaying their past in a respectful manner. The Parthenon museum in Athens is also wonderful. With adequate funding and curatorial help no reason why the same couldn't happen in any African state.

Intriguingly, I stand corrected. India asked for the Kohinoor in 1947 during the Partition discussions and then when QEII was crowned. It hasn't come up since then. So not for some 70 odd years. As I said, since then the SC has ruled that the treaty under which it was transferred is entirely legal...

Didn't Paul Simmonds have diamonds on the soles of some shoes?
Or is that just a load of old cobblers?

Never understood the lure of diamonds - just look like chunks of glass to me, they aren't even that rare and yet people die mining the sodding things. All of them are covered in blood - they symbolise greed and stupidity and people who hanker after them are warped in the head.

If I could I would honestly empty out the country out of all the aristocracy's loot tomorrow, strip every stately home and museum clean, chuck it all in shipping containers and send it back straight back to where it came from.

Like I give a fuck about stupid glittery hats, and vases that cost more than more than a working class person will earn in a lifetime.

Send all the stuff back, then demolish all the stately homes (and churches) and let us have our land back that that was nicked off us in the enclosure acts and land clearances.

Fuck those Anglo-Norman fuckers, and also fuck you Rome.

Elon Musk spends his money on some pretty stupid things….

@TwoLeftSocksWithHoles
🤣🤣🤣🤣
I am going to use that joke ALL THE TIME!!

My friend told me a story about her SIL who had married someone v rich. She had an engagement ring worth something like £50k. She was worried about losing it or being robbed so she had a copy made, kept the real one in a safe. Apparently the copy was so good no one could tell the difference...

If no one can tell then maybe just get some pretty cut glass?

the Koh i Noor Diamond at 21.12g contains about a quadrillion (1000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) carbon atoms. divided fairly between all of humanity's 7,000,000,000 individuals, that gives us about 150,000,000,000,000 atoms each (weight approx 3 picograms)

as a performance art project, it could be divided into 7,000,000,000 pieces of diamond dust.

Diamonds can now be produced by an industrial process, so will soon be common and virtually worthless. That might end arguments over the koh i noor.

Its ours, because we own it and we acquired it legitimately at the time. We might look back and say we wouldnt do that now, but thats how it was at the time

The diamond has been taken and fought over long before the British got their hands on it so theres no 'owner' that is any more legitimate than the British ownership.

All societies and civilisations take and appropriate land, resources, riches, people and political systems from others. Its only recently (after the war) with the human rights act and the concept of war crimes that it has reduced in any great way but it still happens in other ways (proxy wars etc)

You're a bit out of date. The population hit 8 billion back in November! Slightly less diamond each.