HISTORY OF GEMSTONE CUTS FOR DIAMONDS
In the gemstone trade, diamonds are usually treated separately from other coloured gemstones. They are the hardest gemstone and are generally cut and fashioned by diamond cutters, who will specialize in their manufacture, or even just one stage in the diamond cutting and polishing process.
The earliest diamond cuts probably entailed no more than removing the top of an octahedron crystal, known as the point cut. Another early cut is the table cut, where the point of the octahedron is flattened to a square facet called the table. This cut was popular during the Middle Ages. As cutting techniques developed, further cuts were made and the polishing of facets was introduced. The rose cut, with a flat back and domed and faceted front made of triangular facets, was introduced by the 14th century.
The most common cut for a diamond is the brilliant cut. The first type of brilliant was the single cut (or half cut) with the main table facet surrounded by eight smaller facets on the crown (the upper part of the stone) and eight on the pavilion (the lower part of the stone). During the 17th century, this evolved to the double cut (or Mazarin cut), with 16 crown and pavilion facets and a culet (the small face formed by polishing the point of the pavilion to a flat facet). The number of facets continued to increase. By the middle of the 17th century, the triple cut (or Peruzzi cut), and variations including the Brazilian cut and
