Kollur Mine
The Kollur Mine was a group of gravel and clay pits on the south bank of the Krishna River in what is now Andhra Pradesh, India. It began in the early 1600s and closed in the mid-1800s. Discovered around 1619, it was the first of 23 Golconda diamond mines and produced many famous diamonds.
In 1621, English trader William Methwold and Dutch merchant Andries Soury visited. They said as many as 20,000–30,000 people worked there and jewelers from many lands flocked to the site after the news of its discovery, causing diamond prices to fall briefly.
The mine was owned by the local king, who leased it to diamond merchants. He took 2% of sales and kept all diamonds heavier than 10 carats. At its peak, up to 60,000 people worked in the mines, and Kollur town had about 100,000 residents. Mining was crude, dangerous work: workers wore loincloths, slept in straw huts, and were often paid with food instead of money. The pits had little support and could collapse in heavy rains.
In the 2000s the area was evacuated for the Pulichinthala irrigation project, and the pits are now mostly underwater for much of the year, about 50 feet deep. The pits were shallow—less than 4 meters—because of a high water table, with a diamond seam about 1 foot thick. Alluvial workings covered roughly 1.5 km by 0.5–0.8 km, bordered by the Nallamala Hills and the Krishna River meander. Most pits have since been filled with rubble and soil.
Famous diamonds thought to come from Kollur include the Tavernier Blue (later the Hope Diamond), Koh-i-Noor, Great Mogul, Regent, Daria-i-Noor, Orlov, Nizam, Dresden Green, and Nassak. The exact location was lost for centuries and was rediscovered in the 1880s by geologist Valentine Ball, who helped map Golconda mines. By the 1960s Kollur was identified about 1.5 km northeast of Kollur village, on the river’s south bank, extending toward Pulichinthala.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 06:17 (CET).