The aim of this article is to highlight the issues concerning the interpretation of documents referring to Attis and his cult in Aquileia. The author focuses on two of the main problems in the study of archaeological documentation: the over-reading of the image and its function. The analysis of the iconographical components of the figure of Attis shows the extreme versatility of the image of the oriental sheperd and highlights how complex it can be to assign a name to that image without any advice provided by the context. Not each oriental sheperd does represent Attis; more over, an image of Attis does not suffice to confirm the practice of his cult in one site.
