An Arrephoros was a girl acolyte

Acolyte

In many Christian denominations, an acolyte is anyone who performs ceremonial duties such as lighting altar candles. In other Christian Churches, the term is more specifically used for one who wishes to attain clergyhood.-Etymology:...

 in the cult of Athena Polias on the Athenian Acropolis. They were seven to eleven years old. According to Pausanias

Pausanias (geographer)

Pausanias was a Greek traveler and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He is famous for his Description of Greece , a lengthy work that describes ancient Greece from firsthand observations, and is a crucial link between classical...

, two Arrephoroi lived for a year on the Acropolis and concluded their term with a mystery rite called the Arrhephoria

Arrhephoria

Arrhephoria was a feast among the Athenians, instituted in honor of Athena. The word is derived from the Greek term , which is composed of , "mystery", and , "I carry"...

: they carried unknown objects into an underground cavern, and there exchanged them for other unknown objects.

The lexicon of Harpocration

Harpocration

Valerius Harpocration was a Greek grammarian of Alexandria, probably working in the 2nd century CE. He is possibly the Harpocration mentioned by Julius Capitolinus as the Greek tutor of Lucius Verus ; some authorities place him much later, on the ground that he borrowed from Athenaeus...

 states (s.v. Arrêphorein) that there were four Arrephoroi and that two supervised the weaving of the Panathenaic peplos

Peplos

A peplos is a body-lengthGreek garment worn by women before 500 BC. The peplos is a tubular cloth folded inside-out from the top about halfway down, altering what was the top of the tube to the waist and the bottom of the tube to ankle-length. The garment is then gathered about the waist and the...

.

Source

• Joan Breton Connelly, Portrait of a priestess: Women and Ritual in Ancient Greece, p. 27 ISBN 0691127468