Puzzling Peculiarity

As much as Quetminook enjoys being alone with his studies or giving information to anyone who asks for it, he occasionally likes testing mortals. He believes that those who are smartest should be the ones with power and who make decisions. As a result, some of his most sacred secrets and knowledge are hidden for the brilliant to find. One such secret that he hid was the first magical item, crafted by his hands, as well as instructions on making more of them. The puzzle began at a college of magical study in the Elven North, before they isolated themselves from the other mortal races. In the main courtyard, he placed a golden orb, surrounded by rings of gold, silver, platinum, and iron. With no instructions or hints, the test was nearly impossible. No one knew the goal of the puzzle, and for a few years, there was debate as to whether it belonged to Quetminook or Halfar, if it was a puzzle at all.
All of their prayers to Quetminook on the subject were met with silence. He was clearly unwilling to let the tiniest bit slip about the ringed orb. Students and faculty took to studying it in their free time, with no fewer than three clubs and six classes created with the express purpose of solving the mystery. Every imaginable measurement of the puzzle was taken, from size, to temperature, to the rate of absorption of different energies.
Many were understandably frustrated by their inability to solve the puzzle and decided to try and solve the puzzle through brute force. Whenever this would happen, they would be transformed into a random item for a few hours. Once they recovered, in a flowing script tattooed on their arm in electric blue ink, they were marked ‘Fool.’ While some thought that the items people were turned into might be hints, extensive study could find nothing conclusive to draw from the transformations.
One student, an elf named Tucca, made it her lifelong obsession. The puzzle appeared during her first year at the college, and it took her until she was 650 years old to solve it. No one knows how she did it, and as soon as she claimed her prize, the first thing she did was to burn all of her notes at Quetminook’s request. All of her notes, save one page.
This page has a diagram of the puzzle on one side, with concentric circles of writing around it. On the back, there are only three cryptic words: Chains known diadem.