A bridle plate from the town of Békéssámson. New data on the research of archaeological sites dating to the pre-Scythian – early Scythian age in the south of the Carpathian basin

This paper analyzes the distribution of one of the rare variants of horse bridle plates found in the vicinities of the town of Békéssámson in Southeastern Hungary. Considering the analogies to the plates discovered at the sites in Croatia, Serbia and the Northwestern Caucasus, accompanying finds and circumstances surrounding the finds were carefully examined. As a result, we come to the conclusion that the bronze object, studied by the authors cannot be dated earlier than the beginning – the first half of the 7th c. BC. While carefully examining small parts of the find, attention is paid to insufficiency of typology of the horse bridle details and terminology used for describing their functional purpose