Transparency of High Contrast Shroud Face Superimposed Over St. Catherine's Icon

This page is best understood by first reading the page about the Christ Pantocrator.

By placing a high contrast transparency over the Christ Pantocrator icon we see the symmetry patterns, particularly for the nose.

Some things stand out as differences:

• The outer hairline on the left side (your right) of the Shroud face seems more compressed towards the face. The hair seems to fall straight down. But this is due to an anomaly of dark bands on each side of the visible hair. Studies of the banding effect on the Shroud of Turin's image suggest that the hairline is indeed much closer to what we see on the Pantocrator icon.

• The beard on the Pantocrator icon is not forked as it appears to be on the Shroud. Banding studies do not suggest an explanation for this difference.

• The mustache on the icon face is narrower and falls down while the mustache on the Shroud is clearly broad and straight across. Banding studies do show that the mustache on the Shroud's face is much more like the icon than was previously thought.

The image below was produced by filtering out banding. Yellow lines represent improved identification of the angle of the mustache and the tentative hairline edge. This corresponds more closely with the shape of the hair on the icon

Christ Pantocrator Icon at St. Catherine's Monastery

The Vignon Markings