Sewelô


The Sewelô diamond is the second largest rough diamond ever found. The diamond was recovered in April 2019 by the Lucara Diamond Corp in its Karowe diamond mine in Botswana. The diamond is 1,758 carats and weighs 352 grams or 12.39 oz..
The Sewelô is the largest diamond in Botswana’s history, surpassing the 1,111 carats Lesedi La Rona extracted at the same mine on 16 November 2015. The Lesedi La Rona was the fourth-largest diamond ever found, and the third-largest of gem quality.
The gem was named through a competition held by Lucara. Out of 22,000 submissions the name Sewelô was chosen, which translates to 'rare find' in Setswana. In January 2020 it was announced that Louis Vuitton had purchased the diamond for an undisclosed sum. Louis Vuitton will work with the HB Company in Antwerp to polish the diamond and cut it into smaller stones.
The stone is covered with a thin layer of opaque black carbon and its surface is pitted. It is the largest diamond ever recovered in Botswana. It is the size of a tennis ball but weighs six times more. Because of its skin opacity, the core of the stone remains a mystery and no one knows if it will be successfully cut into smaller stones. It is a risky operation inciting the manufacturer, HB Company, to apply novel characterization methods along with artificial intelligence in order to optimise his creation design and to maximize his chances of success.