The Mughal treasure of Nadir Shah refers to the vast hoard of gemstones, jewellery, regalia, and treasure looted by the Persian ruler Nadir Shah Afshar from the Mughal imperial treasury during the 1739 sack of Delhi. The plunder, which contemporary observers estimated at hundreds of millions in eighteenth-century terms (equivalent to many billions in present-day currency), represented two centuries of accumulated Mughal imperial wealth gathered from Akbar through Muhammad Shah. The episode marked the effective end of Mughal imperial power and one of the most consequential transfers of gem wealth in world history. Among the most celebrated items in the seizure were the Koh-i-Noor diamond, the Peacock Throne, the Timur Ruby (now identified as a spinel), and substantial quantities of other historic stones whose subsequent dispersal across Persia, Central Asia, and eventually Europe shaped the history of the world's most important diamonds and coloured stones.

The historical context

Nadir Shah Afshar (1688 to 1747) rose to power in Persia following the collapse of the Safavid dynasty in the early eighteenth century, and he established himself as Shah of Persia in 1736 after a period of military and political consolidation. His military expansion took his armies eastward across the Iranian plateau and into the territory of the Mughal Empire, which by the 1730s was in serious internal decline under the weak rule of Muhammad Shah (reigned 1719 to 1748). The Mughal empire's military capacity had degraded substantially from the high point of the seventeenth century, and the imperial administration was increasingly dependent on the loyalty of provincial governors and Rajput allies whose engagement varied with the perceived strength of the central court.

Nadir Shah's invasion in 1738 to 1739 met with limited resistance. The decisive battle at Karnal on 24 February 1739 saw Mughal forces defeated by a Persian army half their nominal size, with the Mughal command structure failing comprehensively in the face of the Persian advance. The Mughal court submitted, and Nadir Shah entered Delhi on 20 March 1739 as the effective conqueror of the imperial capital. The initial occupation was peaceful, with negotiations underway for a ransom that would have spared Delhi from sack.

The sack itself

The peace was broken on 22 March 1739 when riots broke out in the Delhi bazaars, with rumours that Nadir Shah had been assassinated triggering mob violence against Persian troops. The Persian retaliation was severe: Nadir Shah ordered the qatl-i-amm (general massacre) of the city, which lasted approximately one day and resulted in the deaths of an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 Delhi residents according to contemporary accounts. The city was systematically looted, with the imperial treasury and the wealth of the principal nobility seized by the Persian forces.

The seized treasure included the contents of the imperial treasury — gemstones, jewellery, regalia, and substantial quantities of gold and silver bullion — accumulated by the Mughal emperors over two centuries. The Peacock Throne, the elaborate jewelled throne commissioned by Shah Jahan in the 1630s as the centrepiece of the Diwan-i-Khas in the Red Fort of Delhi, was dismantled and carried back to Persia. The Koh-i-Noor diamond, the Timur Ruby (spinel), the Daria-i-Noor, and other major imperial gemstones formed part of the seizure.

The dispersal

The seized treasure was carried back to Persia by Nadir Shah's army, with the wealth being incorporated into the Persian imperial holdings on the army's return in 1740. The dispersal that followed Nadir Shah's assassination in 1747 carried the seized Mughal gems across Persia, Central Asia, and eventually Europe through complex chains of inheritance, theft, and commercial transaction. The Koh-i-Noor diamond passed through several owners — Ahmad Shah Durrani of Afghanistan, the Sikh empire of Ranjit Singh, and finally the British Crown in 1849 following the Anglo-Sikh wars — before reaching its current home in the British Crown Jewels. The Timur Ruby followed a parallel path through Afghan and Sikh hands before reaching the British Royal Collection. The Daria-i-Noor remained in Persia and is held today in the Iranian Crown Jewels.

The dispersal of the Peacock Throne is more complex. The original throne was substantially dismembered and broken up over the eighteenth century, with the constituent gems redistributed across multiple owners. A reconstituted throne, incorporating some of the original elements, was created for the Persian court in the early nineteenth century and is today known as the Sun Throne or Naderi Throne, held in the Iranian National Treasury.

The historical significance

The 1739 sack of Delhi marked the effective end of the Mughal Empire as a regional power. The empire continued to exist nominally for another century — until the formal British dissolution in 1858 following the Indian Rebellion of 1857 — but its substantive authority over the Indian subcontinent was decisively broken by the Persian invasion. The wealth that had supported imperial patronage of architecture, painting, jewellery, and the broader imperial culture was substantially gone, and the imperial treasury was never refilled to comparable levels.

For the broader history of gem trading, the 1739 sack represents one of the most consequential single transfers of gem wealth in world history. The dispersal of the seized Mughal gems shaped the subsequent history of the world's most important diamonds and coloured stones, with stones from the Mughal treasury appearing in the British Royal Collection, the Iranian Crown Jewels, the Russian Diamond Fund, and various private and institutional collections across Europe and Asia. The genealogy of many of the world's most important historic gemstones traces back through the Mughal treasury and the Nadir Shah dispersal.

The contemporary legacy

The Koh-i-Noor diamond remains the most celebrated single item from the Nadir Shah dispersal, with its current display in the British Crown Jewels (in the crown made for Queen Mother Elizabeth in 1937) being a continuing point of historical and political significance. The Indian, Pakistani, Iranian, and Afghan governments have at various times made formal claims for the return of the Koh-i-Noor, with the British government consistently declining to accept the claims. The broader question of restitution for the various dispersed Mughal gems remains a live issue in the politics of the colonial-era heritage trade.

In the trade

For Skyjems and the broader trade, the Mughal treasure of Nadir Shah is principally a historical reference point rather than an active source of trading material. The most important seized stones are held in major institutional collections (the British Crown Jewels, the Iranian Crown Jewels, the Russian Diamond Fund, the Topkapı Palace Museum) and are essentially permanently retired from active commerce. Smaller stones from the dispersal continue to circulate occasionally through estate dispositions and the high-end auction market, with Mughal-treasury provenance commanding substantial premiums when documented. The 1739 sack remains one of the central historical events for the connoisseurship of historic gemstones and an essential reference point for any serious engagement with the broader history of the gem trade.

Further reading

• Royal Collection Trust — Koh-i-Noor and Timur Ruby
• Victoria and Albert Museum — Treasures of the Mughals
• GIA Gems & Gemology — historic Indian and Persian gemstones
• International Gem Society — historic gemstone trade