And so we had (maybe) a winner.

There are researchers who believe that, while in main part supernatural, the original image of Guadalupe (feast day December 12), was embellished by artists. We’re not sure of that.

But a few years back we asked anyone with proficiency at editing on whatever software they had if they could reconstruct the famous manifestation of the pregnant Virgin, but without the allegedly artificial embellishments (golden rays, stars, fleur de lis, angels, moon) that some experts, analyzing it through infra-red and ultra-violet, say were later additions. 

Several folks disputed that research (reported by a scientist, Jody Brant Smith, who studied the actual tilma on which Mary materialized). Others responded with images of what it would have looked like originally.

The one that seemed most compelling is at the top, alongside the actual version, and was sent to us by Michael O’Neill, the well-known expert on Marian apparitions who operates a website called The Miracle Hunter (one that lists approved and rejected apparitions through history).

In this rendition there are still folds on her dress (which some say were also additions), but it seems to capture Mary’s essence in line with the simple and plain but unbelievably compelling and equally miraculous Shroud of Turin.

Others sent images such as those at the side—also interesting and worthy.

On his website, O’Neill notes, as far as the artistic additions, the following:

Symbolism

The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe is more than simply a picture. It contains symbols—in a sense, hieroglyphics, or a story in pictures—that reveal part of the message the Blessed Mother brought through Juan Diego to the Indians of Mexico and to all the people of the Americas. But the symbols had a special meaning to the Indians, who because of their culture could decipher the code in the image.

Now, that’s not to say the alleged additions, if done, weren’t inspired. (They were!)

From the mail, one writer noted (for discernment):

	1. Eyes The eyes of the image are looking down, a position of humility, revealing that, as great as she is, she is not a god. Indian gods never looked down; they looked straight ahead.
	2. Face The woman’s face shows great compassion. The Indians felt that the face was the window of the inner person, a means by which one could read who a person was—the way a person would act. A good woman to the Indians was one whose femininity showed in her face. The head of the woman in the image shows her with dark skin and dark hair like that of the Indians.
	3. Hands Her hands are not poised in the traditional Western style of prayer, but in an Indian manner of offering, indicating that something is being offered, that something is to come from her.
	4. Maternity Band The maternity band around the woman’s waist was the sign of a pregnant woman, a mother who is about to give birth, it was a sign to the Indians that someone is yet to come.
	5. Stars The stars on the mantle are a sign that a new civilization, or era, is beginning. The Indian tradition recognized the end and the beginning of different eras throughout the ages, and the destruction of a particular civilization or era was always accompanied by a comet, or a body of stars.
	6. Sun Rays The rays of sun in the image recalled for the Indians that the sun played a key role in their civilization. But the woman in the image is greater than even the sun. She hides the sun, and only the rays come forth. She hides the sun but does not extinguish it.
	7. Mantle The predominant color in the image’s mantle is turquoise, the blue-green color reserved for the great god Omecihuatl. Although the Indians had many “intermediary gods.” Omecihuatl was considered the supreme god. It was a mother-father god who sometimes was represented as a man and sometimes as a woman. It was a source of unity for everything that exists.
	8. Moon The woman is standing on the moon, indicating that she is greater than the god of night, the moon god.
	9. Angel The angel at the bottom of the image was seen by the Indians as an “intermediary god” carrying in a new era, the beginning of a new civilization. One era was at an end — had died — and a new one was beginning, was being born.

Many also don’t know that on December 22, 1981, at the Observatory Laplace Mexico City, Father Mario Rojas and Dr. Juan Hernández Illescas, a medical doctor and amateur astronomer, performed an astronomical study of the image and analyzed the stellar arrangement that appear in the Mantle of Our Lady—finding an additional miracle (in addition to the way the image first materialized, how it has lasted on delicate weave in Mexico City’s acidic atmosphere for so many centuries (since 1531), the images in the eyes, and the colors, which cannot be duplicated with known artistic dyes or coloring agents).

He and his team discovered that the stars stunningly and accurately map out the various constellations of the Mexican sky.

Even more remarkable is the “star map” on the mantle is in the reverse (the cardinal axis rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise): providing a view of the constellations from beyond them, as would be seen looking through them towards the earth. The constellations are consistent with what astronomers believe was in the sky above Mexico City on the day the apparition occurred—in the winter-morning solstice of December 12, 1531, Saturday, at 10:26 a.m.

Our Lady’s cloak has 46 stars: 22 on her right side, and 24 on her left side. These 46 stars are the most brilliant stars that surround the horizon of the Mexican Valley which have been identified. The main constellations of the Northern sky can be seen on the right of the mantle. On the left, the Southern ones which can be seen from the Tepeyac in winter at dawn. The East is situated in the upper part and the West in the lower part. The Mantle is opened and there are other groups of stars which are not marked in the Image, but they are present in the sky. The Boreal Crown is located above the Virgin’s head; Virgo is on her chest, in the region of her hands. Leo on Her womb, precisely above the sign of Nahui Ollin, with his main star Regulo, the small king. Gemini, the twins, is found in the region of the knees and Orion is located where the Angel is.