The Delhi Purple Sapphire, or the Cursed Amethyst, as it soon came to be known, was snatched from the Temple of Indra in Kanpur, India, during the year 1857. Ever since then, the gemstone has brought misery and misfortune to the person whose hands it falls in.
The treasure found its way to Colonel W. Ferris, who is said to have taken it to England with him. Soon after, he ended up losing his fortune, and his health started to fail.
His son, who had inherited the amethyst, suffered the same fate, so he gave it to a friend of the family. The friend committed suicide while the gem was in his possession.
By 1890, Edward Heron-Allen was the owner of the beautiful violet stone. Heron-Allen was a respected scholar who was knowledgeable in many different topics. Not long after obtaining the gem, Heron-Allen experienced a series of unfortunate events.
He gave the stone to a friend who was a singer. She suddenly lost her voice and was never able to sing again. Heron-Allen was desperate to get rid of the stone, so he tossed it into Regent’s Canal. But three months later, the gem was discovered in the depths of the canal and returned to him by a jeweler.
Hoping to prevent anyone else from being touched by the amethyst’s curse, he packed it into seven boxes and locked it away in his bank vault with instructions not to open it until 33 years after his death.
Shortly after his death, Heron-Allen’s daughter unlocked the purple stone and handed it over to the Natural History Museum in London. A letter that Heron-Allen had written was found alongside the gem.
It warned the future possessor of the amethyst of the curses that had befallen those who owned it before. At the end of the note, he advised whoever opened it to throw the jewel into the sea.
In 2007, the gemstone was exhibited at the Natural History Museum in London, where it is currently located today. Some staff members at the museum believe that Heron-Allen concocted the tales of misfortune associated with the gem to promote his short story titled “The Purple Sapphire.”
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However, others assert that the gem still has an evil influence about it. A curator named Richard Savin stated that each time he had transported the gem to meetings with the Heron-Allen Society, he had gotten stuck in a violent storm or became terribly ill.
Do you think it’s a curse or a coincidence? If the amethyst truly is hexed, perhaps the curse can never be broken until it is returned to its rightful place in a temple in India.
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