Metal plate beneath Linothorakes or Spolades

[MeinPanzer]

Agreed. My point was that if the riveted plates from Kampyr Tepe are actually armor, they are likely cataphract armor. Especially as evidence like the Louvre statuette point to a combination of Greek and Central Asian elements in cataphract armor of the Hellenisic period. I suppose I was arguing that the Kampyr Tepe find could be armor, but if it is, this should not be taken as evidence for widespread use of metal plates in T&Y armor in the wider Hellenistic world, but rather just as another example of metal armor used in cataphract equipment in the east. Of course, Nikonorov's original argument is that it is simply a broken and repaired muscled cuirass and not T&Y at all.

I disagree. Let's survey the evidence. From Graeco-Bactrian figural sources we have a handful of sources depicting soldiers wearing muscled cuirasses, namely the infantrymen on the Nisa rhyton, the Tillya Tepe clasps, and perhaps the Kampyr Tepe terracotta; and the cavalrymen on the coinage of kings such as Philoxenos and Hermaios. None of these depictions shows a cataphract. The only evidence we have from the Hellenistic period for cataphracts wearing plate armour (of any kind, as far as I am aware) is the two Louvre statuettes, the one posted in this thread as well as the almost identical, albeit much smaller and poorer in quality example also in the Louvre of unknown provenance. Regardless of whether the figurine under discussion came from Mesopotamia or the Levant (I'll discuss this below), it was far away from Central Asia, and it shows a combination of Iranian and Hellenistic, but not Central Asian, features. From Central Asia itself, we have numerous actual examples of cataphract panoplies (Old Nisa, Ai Khanoum, Takht-i Sangin, Chirik Rabat), as well as representations from figural sources (i.e. Khumbuz Tepe), and not a single piece of evidence suggesting that plate armour was used. Therefore, drawing upon the evidence at our disposal, the most likely explanation as to whom the Kampyr Tepe fragment of a cuirass would belong would be a non-cataphract, whether a lighter cavalryman or an infantryman.

Sorry to keep veering off topic, but can you point me to resources describing these armor finds?

The main publication is Litvinskii, Boris Anatol’evich and I. Pichikian, Ellinisticheskii khram Oksa v Baktrii, vol. 2, Baktriiskoe voory?ie v drevnevosto?nom i gre?eskom kontekste (Moscow: Izd. Firma "Vostocnaja Literatura" RAN, 2001).

This site is also the most likely candidate for the original home of the Oxus treasure, which is believed to have been buried on the banks of the Oxus during one of the waves of nomadic invasions in the last centuries BC.

The Louvre website actually shows the origin as the Levant.

Museum websites regularly get things like provenance and date wrong, especially on older items with fuzzy provenances. I believe that Rostovtzeff was the first to publish this figurine, and he states it is from Mesopotamia.