Unusual duplication

Hi All!

New to the community and new to Blender - 2 months old :evilgrin:.
I hope it is here where I can get some help on the following usual issue.

In desiring to capture the full detail of a Byzantine painting, I “displaced” a primitive over the painting (thus effectively creating a 2d into a 3d). After subdividing a few more times I applied the modifiers “Solidify” > “Smooth”. Once I messed with the settings a bit on each and reach a desired edit I saved the document as an STI, so that I could better sculpt the needed finer details of the byzantine icon.

The weirdest thing happened then. Once I opened the STI the project was duplicated. There a very large copy of my project behind a very small copy of my project. Idk what happened. When I press “G” to move the piece it duplicates both copies (thus creating 4 copies).

Has anyone dealt or heard of this issue? If not, do you know where I can go to get some advice?

Thanks!
Thomas