As a result of the activities of ‘treasure hunters’ near the villages of Rykhtychi/Рихтичі in the Drohobych District and Toboliv/Тоболів in the Chervonohrod (now Sheptytskyi) District of the Lviv Region (Ukraine), two assemblages of artefacts were found, including decorative horse harness fittings. The Toboliv artefacts (Fig. 4), with the exception of a rim end fitting from a saddle strap, were sold at an online auction in 2017 and are no longer available for research. The artefacts from Rykhtychi (Fig. 1) were donated to the collection of the Archaeological Museum of the Ivan Franko National University in Lviv (Львівський національний університет імені Івана Франка), where the Toboliv rim end fitting also went (Figs. 4:17, 5). In 2023, the chemical composition of these objects was analysed in the laboratory of the Department of Solid State Physics (Кафедра Фізики Твердого Тіла) of the Lviv University. A scanning electron microscope with an X-ray microanalyser REMMA-102-02 was used in the study and it was determined that the objects were made of silver, copper, tin bronze and brass (Tables 1 & 2). The surface of the Toboliv rim end fitting shows traces of heat, probably from the pile.

The characteristic composition of these assemblages of artefacts (decorative elements of horse harnesses), as well as their context (funerary or cultic), indicate that they are traces of a group of barbarians who honoured the traditions of the ‘equestrian culture’ that inhabited the area of the eastern foothills of the Carpathians and western Volhynia during the B2/C1–C1a phase of the Roman Iron Age.