When the first East India Company merchants arrived on India’s shores, ‘Golconda’ was already a byword for unimaginable wealth.

Indeed since the late 15th century, this fabled fortress had lain at the beating heart of the Qutb Shahi Sultanate, an Indian kingdom that ruled over all the known diamond mines in the world.

Arising from the ashes of the Bahmani Empire in central India, it had inspired poetry in Iran, palaces in Thailand, and ushered in a renaissance for Telugu and Dakhni literature.

-Sam Dalrymple.