Where did I find this, anyone?

[Erpingham]

Well done Duncan (and Alastair). Take that, AI bot!

Now you have tracked it, what is the image telling us? 

[Adrian Nayler]

Yes Alastair, what an inspired suggestion. Whilst I was busy rooting around in the image database c. 2022 Duncan found what he was looking for!

[Duncan Head]

Well, it might be evidence for soldiers in Persian (or "Median") clothing with a Greek-style hoplite shield. This is the "traditional" interpretation of kardakes-hoplites. But, as Richard T pointed out in his Greek Hoplite Phalanx book, calling them "hoplites" doesn't necessarily mean Greek hoplite gear. We have figures in this costume with the aspis on the Alexander Sarcophagus, but Nick Sekunda has alternative identifications for these. And although he does have a reconstruction of a kardaka-hoplite based on figures on the Mosaic, I've never been sure what figures he means, nor whether the shield he uses (the one under Alex's horse, decorated with concentric circles) is actually a hoplite aspis at all (there is no clear offset rim). So any tiny snippet of information along those lines is useful.

[LawrenceG]

Fascinating how detailed the reply was yet turned out to be fictional.

Obviously trained on the texts of ancient Greek and Roman historians.

[Sharur]

Delighted it did help! I had a quick glance through some of those Bandirma pages, but I didn't get as far as page 8. I did notice that those bullae images were often very similar in nature and form to the one you were hunting for, much more so than those from the other museums, so was hopeful it might be there somewhere.

I usually do try Wayback Machine in cases like this, as the worst that can happen is it just says "sorry, we don't appear to have that page archived". The main snag is you need to have a website URL of some kind to work with in the first place, as the search can be very slow and unhelpful there otherwise.