1. In 1985 the author got acquainted with an enamel decorated bronze figural plate. It was found by a Rostovian schoolboy on the territory of a garbage-heap in the harbour part of Tanais. Today this object belongs to the collection of the Rostov County Museum of Local History.

2. The basis of the massive bronze buckle is a moulded one, there is a low edge on its back-side. Attached to the back-side of the object there are two short axles with round parts on their end. The axles once had served for fixing the plate to the thick (8 mm) basis, perhaps to a leather.

3. The right side of the plate is richly decorated: in the centre there is a polychrome, "chess table" style square, on its edges we see a belt of white enamel with two rows of crosses. Both zones of the ornament were made in a millefiori technique. The edges of the plate with stylised mushroom and "corn" shaped details are decorated with red, blue and green enamel.

4. This plate undoubtedly belongs to the group of objects produced by enamel workshops of Roman provinces in the 2nd-3rd centuries A.D. This is the second period of the flourishing of the enamel craft for which millefiori technique was typical. The summit of this style is represented by pixids (small boxes) the whole surface of which was covered by millefiori ornamentation (Haseloff). É. Bónis and I. Sellye noticed that especially frequently rectangular objects of the second half of the 2nd - first half of the 3rd century had been decorated in this way. We can suggest that our find can be dated to the end of the 2nd - beginning of the 3rd century.

5. The function of this object is not clear. Judging from the thickness of the belt it could be a decoration of a horse-harness. Objects with similar shape Fr. Henry suggested to be buckles.

6. Similar finds are very rare in the South of Russia. Among published objects of this kind the author knows only a pixid from Kerch (collection of Messaksudi). However, a large amount of small bronze enamel objects (mainly fibulas) gives a general background that makes us look for a way of appearance of these enamels into the North Pontic and Azov region in the first centuries A.D. Perhaps large objects from the Rhine and Belgium came to the Don-Azov region on the route Pannonia-Olbia-caravan road through the Dnieper region and the Azov steppes (Shelov 1965).

7. The finding of this plate in the layers of garbage of Tanais once more underlines the importance of this place: the source of attractive and rare finds torn out of the historic context.