>>96527879
>Instead plate was something that first had to be developed and once developed it had to be available and affordable
Yeah but plate is a thing from the Mycenaean period in the 1500s BCE.
And small, shitty, individual plates have been used for just as long. A popular example are how the Roman conscripts often armored themselves with a metal chest plate.

It's not hard to make. If something only has studs, it's probably not armor, and it's definitely not stand alone. It might be an archer's brace, or given the bas reliefs it's probably meant to go with Mail armor, since the only depiction of the armor you described is of a guy wearing it underneath mail sleeves.
Oh and, needless to say, we only have bracers and nothing else.