You're looking at the face of a 1,500 year-old Christ.
And it's not a copy.
This is the Pantocrator of Sinai, the oldest icon of Christ in the world.
Tucked inside the Monastery of Saint Catherine, at the foot of Mount Sinai in Egypt.
Two things make it unforgettable: the way it was made and the way it looks at you.
They used encaustic, which is pigment bound with hot wax, and that is why it survived when almost every other Byzantine icon was lost.
Then there is the face, which is not perfectly symmetrical. One side is serene and bright and raises a hand to bless you, while the other is severe and marked by suffering and holds the Gospel, so you see both natures at once, divine on one side and human on the other.