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Friday, November 30, 2007
London: The Delhi Purple Sapphire, a gem that is believed by many to be "cursed", will go on public display at the vault in the Natural History Museum in London, on Wednesday.
A spokesman of the museum said today that the Sapphire was brought to the UK by a Bengal cavalryman, Colonel W Ferris, after being looted from the Temple of Indra in Kanpur during the war of 1857.
The soldier thereafter lost money and health, and his son who inherited whatever was left subsequently lost it, too.
A family friend who possessed it for a short time committed suicide.
Edward Heron-Allen, a scientist and friend of wit and playwright Oscar Wilde, was the last owner of gem.
He was given the stone in 1890 and was immediately beset by misfortunes. He twice gave the stone to friends who had asked for it; one "was thereupon overwhelmed by every possible disaster", and the other, a singer, found "her voice was dead and gone and she has never sung since."
Heron-Allen even claimed to have thrown the gem into Regent's Canal only for it to be returned to him three months later by a dealer who had bought it from a dredger.
By 1904, Heron-Allen had had enough.
Declaring, "I feel that it is exerting a baleful influence over my newborn daughter", he had it shipped to his bankers with instructions that it be locked away till after his death.
At the risk of sounding far-fetched, even scientists are not immune to the power of the story of the Delhi Purple Sapphire. Read More
A spokesman of the museum said today that the Sapphire was brought to the UK by a Bengal cavalryman, Colonel W Ferris, after being looted from the Temple of Indra in Kanpur during the war of 1857.
The soldier thereafter lost money and health, and his son who inherited whatever was left subsequently lost it, too.
A family friend who possessed it for a short time committed suicide.
Edward Heron-Allen, a scientist and friend of wit and playwright Oscar Wilde, was the last owner of gem.
He was given the stone in 1890 and was immediately beset by misfortunes. He twice gave the stone to friends who had asked for it; one "was thereupon overwhelmed by every possible disaster", and the other, a singer, found "her voice was dead and gone and she has never sung since."
Heron-Allen even claimed to have thrown the gem into Regent's Canal only for it to be returned to him three months later by a dealer who had bought it from a dredger.
By 1904, Heron-Allen had had enough.
Declaring, "I feel that it is exerting a baleful influence over my newborn daughter", he had it shipped to his bankers with instructions that it be locked away till after his death.
At the risk of sounding far-fetched, even scientists are not immune to the power of the story of the Delhi Purple Sapphire. Read More
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