Ride
a nearby carousel to celebrate the ancient activity of whirling
round-and-round! The earliest known depiction of a carousel dates
back to a carving made around the year 500, within the Byzantine
civilization. In that bas-relief, riders were pictured in baskets
suspended from a central pole.
During the Middle Ages, cavalry (soldiers who fight on horseback) did some training on wooden horses suspended from arms that branch from a central pole. The training devise was called a carousel, which comes from the Spanish word for “little battle.”
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| This is what a flying carousel looks like today. Notice: no horses! |
In
the early 1600s, a traveller described in writing a carousel pleasure
ride he saw in the Ottoman Empire (in what is now Bulgaria), and by
the early 1700s, these kinds of carousels were being built at fairs
and gatherings in many places in central Europe and England.These
early carousels had no platforms—the animals would hang on poles or
chains and would fly out from the centrifugal force as the carousel
turned. Also, early carousels were powered by people or animals
pulling ropes and walking in circles, or by people turning a crank.
Later, of course, steam engines and eventually electricity powered
the rides.
More
carousel fun...
- Here is an online jigsaw of some carousel horses. (Notice that you can change how difficult the puzzle is by clicking “Change Cut” on the left side of the screen.)
- I love this “Stained-Glass” coloring book, drawn by Christy Shaffer.
- Design your own carousel. What kinds of animals would you use? Would they go up and down? What colors would you use for the platform, poles, and canopy? Would there decorations and lights? Draw and label a picture of your design.
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on this date:
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