The "Little Refugee": A Hooded Boy from Nysa

This article examines a small marble statuette from ancient Nysa on the Maeander, now in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens and popularly known as the “Little Refugee.” Depicting a barefoot, hooded child clutching a puppy, the statuette is conventionally identified as a genre figure of a boy with a dog. Its unusual combination of the hooded child and animal companion, however, invites comparison with the long-lived iconography of Telesphorus, the hooded child associated with the healing cult of Asclepius, and with related hooded figures such as the Genii Cucullati of the Roman West. By comparing the Nysa statuette with representations from Asia Minor, the Danube provinces, Roman Britain and Gaul, provincial coinage, and Late Antique art, this study traces the changing attributes and meanings attached to the hooded child from the Hellenistic period into Late Antiquity. Particular attention is given to the distinction between the characteristic hood and variable secondary attributes, including animals, offerings, and the scroll. The evidence suggests a possible relationship between the Nysa image and the broader Telesphorus tradition, but does not establish a definitive identification. Equally significant is the statuette's modern biography: excavated at Gerontikon and carried to Greece by refugees from Asia Minor in 1922, the ancient child acquired an unexpected modern identity as a refugee. The “Little Refugee” thus offers an unusual intersection of ancient iconography, religious syncretism, archaeological interpretation, and modern memory, demonstrating how the meaning of an ancient object can continue to evolve long after its creation.