What does the picture illustrate?
The Kutna Hora prayer book, a remarkable work from the latter 15th
century, has this illustration of silver-mining on its title page.
Depicted in the lower third are the miners of Kutna Hora at work
underground. The middle part shows treatment of the ore while the upper
part presents division of the yield. Crowning the picture are the
Emperor's symbols.
The aptness of the analogy with data-mining could hardly be clearer.
A larger image of the illustration
