The workmanship of these weapons and armour is excellent: it shows an advanced stage of manufacturing skill. This characteristic is even more remarkable in the case of horse-trappings. The saddle and stirrups, the bridle and bit, are practically the same as those that were used in modern times, even a protective toe-piece for the stirrup being present. A close resemblance is observable between the ring stirrups of old Japan and those of mediaeval Europe, and a much closer affinity is shown by the bits, which had cheek-pieces and were usually jointed in the centre precisely like a variety common in Europe; metal pendants, garnished with silver and gold and carrying globular jingle-bells in their embossed edges, served for horse decoration. These facts are learned, not from independent relics alone, but also from terracotta steeds found in the tumuli and moulded so as to show all their trappings. Other kinds of expert iron-work have also survived; as chains, rings and, buckles, which differ little from corresponding objects in Europe at the present day; and the same is true of nails, handles, hinges, and other fittings. Tools used in working metal are rarely found, a fact easily accounted for when we remember that such objects would naturally be excluded from sepulchres. There is another important relic which shows that the Yamato were "indebted to China for the best specimens of their decorative art." This is a round bronze mirror, of which much is heard in early Japanese annals from the time of Izanagi downwards. In China the art of working in bronze was known and practised during twenty centuries prior to the Christian era; but although Japan seems to have possessed the knowledge at the outset of the dolmen epoch, (circ. 600 B.C.), she had no copper mine of her own until thirteen centuries later, and was obliged to rely on Korea for occasional supplies. This must have injuriously affected her progress in the art of bronze casting.