The third largest diamond on Earth discovered in Africa

Diamond miners have discovered a 1,098-carat diamond at a mine in Botswana, which is probably considered the third largest diamond in the world, The Guardian reported . The stone was found on June 1 in the Jwaneng quarry in southern Botswana - it is considered the largest diamond mining quarry in the world. Debswana, a mining company, a joint venture between De Beers and the Botswana government, said it was the largest diamond in the company's five-year history.

Botswana is the world's leading exporter of diamonds. Here, at the Karove mine, in 2015, the second largest diamond in the world, Our Light (Lesedi la Rona), was found. The world's largest diamond, the Cullinan, is larger than the second and third combined. It was found in 1905 in South Africa and is valued at 3106 carats. Three years later, it was split into over 100 fragments. The largest of them, a teardrop-shaped "Big Star of Africa" weighing 530 carats, crowned the scepter of the English king Edward VII, and is now kept in the Tower of London.

The new stone will be evaluated in the coming weeks, after which Botswana's state-owned diamond trading company will decide whether to buy it from Debswana or let De Beers sell it.