diff --git a/docs/data-model.rst b/docs/data-model.rst
index 1693ae496545272e794cf19cea3f6bf9ef854479..8058c214ed77e00151ef4e76d5c40848d21f82c7 100644
--- a/docs/data-model.rst
+++ b/docs/data-model.rst
@@ -3,6 +3,14 @@
 Data model
 ==========
 
+.. _swh-merkle-dag:
+.. figure:: images/swh-merkle-dag.svg
+   :width: 1024px
+   :align: center
+
+   Software Heritage archive as a Merkle DAG, augmented with crawling
+   information (click to zoom).
+
 TODO
 
 Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor
diff --git a/docs/images/.gitignore b/docs/images/.gitignore
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..e9c694ce24364021872ec307b95ca435d82b0aff
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/images/.gitignore
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+swh-merkle-dag.pdf
+swh-merkle-dag.svg
diff --git a/docs/images/Makefile b/docs/images/Makefile
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..fc8352ceeb9301fe960b0aecfbb0dbead8c6a6e3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/images/Makefile
@@ -0,0 +1,25 @@
+
+MERKLE_DAG = swh-merkle-dag.svg
+
+BUILD_TARGETS =
+BUILD_TARGETS += $(MERKLE_DAG)
+
+all: $(BUILD_TARGETS)
+
+
+# dia exporters
+
+%.eps: %.dia
+	dia -t eps --export $@ $<
+
+%.svg: %.dia
+	dia -t svg --export $@ $<
+
+# generic converters
+
+%.pdf: %.eps
+	epstopdf $<
+
+
+clean:
+	-rm -f $(BUILD_TARGETS)
diff --git a/docs/images/swh-merkle-dag.dia b/docs/images/swh-merkle-dag.dia
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..3e4ddc9106078a68c83869a4bf98cbf26a2d90ae
Binary files /dev/null and b/docs/images/swh-merkle-dag.dia differ