Talas-Tal bronze figurine

[MeinPanzer]

Ruben,
I agree.
The rows of the skirt are clearly intented as rows of armoured plates.
As for the chest armour. I also tend to go for armoured plates, but I saw a reconstruction (black/white) of Azes I on horse once in an old issue of 'Campaigns magazine'. The article was on Scythians. Here Azes I chest was depicted with a small upper front portion of solid armour. The rest, from about the middle of the chest to middle leg was depicted in armoured plates. The arms were protected with laminated (text says leather if I remember correct) bands. Also the horse's front part and head was protected with plain leather.
Could a small portion of solid chest armour be possible?
Later Sarmatians certainly used a combination of mail and solid plates.

I didn't buy the magazine then, but I like to have the article with the reconstruction. Maybe you or somebody else can help me with this. Don't remember the number of the mag. though.
Greetings
Philip

I don't think I'm familiar with this reconstruction, but it sounds fairly hypothetical. Saka heavy cavalrymen certainly could have used some plate armour, but we have absolutely no evidence for it. Every detailed piece of evidence we have points to large square or rectangular plates being used in this early period. Sarmatians certainly did employ plate armour toward the late Middle or early Late Sarmatian period, but the armour of western nomads at this time period was quite different from eastern nomads. The closest thing we find to portions of solid plate armour are a longer thin band of fragmentary armour from the Chirik Rabat panoply, which Gorelik takes to be a solid armoured belt separating the torso of the cuirass from the skirt, but even this is not all that large.

Also, while some forms of armour may have been made of leather, the few actual finds we have of eastern cataphract panoplies from the centuries BC (Chirik Rabat, Ai Khanoum, Old Nisa) show that laminated arm armour was probably normally made of metal.