Carousel Horses Views

General Goods

A carousel (from French carrousel, from Italian carosello), or merry-go-round, is an amusement ride consisting of a rotating circular platform with seats for riders. The seats are traditionally in the form of rows of wooden horses or other animals mounted on posts, many of which are moved up and down via gearwork to simulate galloping, to the accompaniment of looped circus music. This leads to one of the alternative names, the galloper. Other popular names are roundabout and flying horses.

Carousels are commonly populated with horses, but may include diverse varieties of mounts,[1] like pigs, zebras, mythological creatures (such as dragons, sea monsters or unicorns), and deer, to name a few. Sometimes, chair or bench-like seats are used as well, and occasionally mounts can be shaped like airplanes or cars.

The earliest known depiction of a carousel is in a Byzantine bas-relief dating to around 500 A.D., which depicts riders in baskets suspended from a central pole. The word carousel originates from the Italian garosello and Spanish carosella ( little battle ), used by crusaders to describe a combat preparation exercise and game played by Turkish and Arabian horsemen in the 12th century. In a sense this early device could be considered a cavalry training mechanism; it prepared and strengthened the riders for actual combat as they wielded their swords at the mock enemies. European Crusaders discovered this device and brought the idea back to their own lands.[citation needed] A carousel was also a training device for the ring-tilt, consisting of wooden horses suspended from arms branching from a central pole. Riders aimed to spear rings situated around the circumference as the carousel was moved by a man, horse, or mule.

William H. Dentzel of Port Townsend, Washington is the only descendant from a founding American carousel family of the United States still making wooden carousels. His carousels are similar to the oldest operating carousel in the United States in Watch Hill, R.I. (1893) built by the Dare company, a flying horses machine. The power sources for Dentzel’s contemporary carousels range from rope-pull to hand-crank to foot-pedal to AC 110 volt electric to DC solar power.