Metal plate beneath Linothorakes or Spolades

[MeinPanzer]

I generally agree, but the shoulder pieces from Ai Khanoum are made up of smaller scales and larger plates. I'm not aware of any iconography that shows cataphract armor (either Central Asian, or Greek) with shoulder pieces, but it seems to me these could be part of a metal T&Y cuirass used by a Graeco-Bactrian cataphract. Just because we have no full depiction of such a suit of armor does not mean it wouldn't exist.The combination of a Greek and Central Asian elements is certainly not unknown in cataphract armor, for example in this statue with Greek-style cuirass (muscled in this case) and hooped limb armor from Syria from the Seleucid or Parthian era in the Louvre:

The scattered remains of cataphract armour from Old Nisa also included hinges, so contemporary armour for Parthian cataphracts may have similarly included shoulder yokes. The plates that make up the body of the cuirass (and at Ai Khanoum we don't even know if the two shoulder yokes belonged to the mass of scales) are still identical to those found in particular at Takht-i Sangin, and also to some plates from Old Nisa. My point is still that this type of armour was limited to the heavy cavalrymen as far as we are aware.

BTW, I have never heard of armor from Takht-i Sangin, did you mean Old Nisa?

No, Takht-i Sangin, the large temple complex from southern Tajikistan which was built in the late 4th or early 3rd c. BC. A massive amount of arms and armour from the 4th-2nd c. BC were found inside, including portions of plate and scale cuirasses almost certainly belonging to cataphracts.

On the above statue there is banding on his feet and shins also. These are generally interpreted as leg bindings. Why are the arms covered in segmented plate and the feet in bindings? Why can't the arms also be covered in an item of clothing and not armour?

Certainly a possibility. However, we know hooped limb armor existed and it looked rather like the arms on this statue. I've never heard the interpretation of the leg banding as bindings, but I have wondered why they only come part way up the leg--why not just wear greaves? The fact that the banding continues down the foot, then ends in something not too different from the foot guard from Ai Khanoum makes me lean towards it being armor, but I don't know why it only covers the lower leg.

Dan raises a very good point regarding this rather problematic 3 C BC statuette, found, I believe, in Syria - if so then it cannot be 'Parthian' but rather Hellenistcic because of time and place. It is often assumed the 'hoops' on the arms are armour by analogy with the 2 C BC Pergamum reliefs showing a trophy which includes tubular/hooped arm pieces, a Tube-and-Yoke corselet ( the shoulder pieces decorated with 'thunderbolts') and a masked helmet, and also bearing the senior oficer's girdle tied with the knot of Heracles, like the statuette.....

Firstly, the statuette was found in Mesopotamia, and is of uncertain date, though it is likely late Hellenistic. If it was found in Mesopotamia and is late Hellenistic, then it is almost certainly Parthian.

I agree with Michael; who has interpreted it as binding? It's hoop armour reaching up to mid-calf level, just like the hoop armour on his arms. These areas were probably left bare to better allow the cataphract to grip his horse and perhaps even to allow him to walk more easily when dismounted, and it matches exactly Plutarch's statement in the Life of Lucullus that the only parts of the Armenian cataphracts at Artaxata left exposed were the knees and thighs (28.4).

I don't think there's anything too mysterious about this guy. He's probably just a Parthian cataphract officer or king wearing a mix of Hellenistic (muscled cuirass), Iranian (helmet, also seen on the Seleucia on the Tigris cataphract figurine), and Central Asian/Iranian (hoop armour) armour. As far as the Hellenistic part goes, I would bring up the statues from Old Nisa showing Parthians wearing cuirasses (perhaps muscled cuirasses) with pteryges and Attic helmets.