Good design kills 20,000
At the battle of Carrhae in 53 B.C.
In the year 53 B.C., Marco Casio invaded Parthia with a 40,000 man army, and the goal of expanding the Roman Empire.
It was a disaster.
This was mainly due to the design of the Parthian bow, a weapon made with a laminated spring, with a range and power that made the Roman legions defenseless. 20,000 Romans died, 10,000 were taken prisoner.
The Parthians did not prevail because they had a better general, they prevailed because they had a better designer.
Excerpted from @Issue Journal of Business & Design.
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Golly, it makes you proud to be a designer, doesn’t it?!
LOL… very very funny… at the same time very true.
Good design is powerful. Did the designer actually won any awards? Probably it was the work of many designers through many years of testing and experimenting and many beta versions. :)
Hmmm, back to the drawing board for me then. Don’t think my marshmallow tip arrow is going to be a winner.
Design should not be given all the credit for why the Parthian bow was so effective.
An appreciation of the role design played in the construction of the Parthian bow only makes sense when the underlying reason for the bow’s existence is brought to light. It is unlikely that the bow was designed to fend off the military forces of the Roman Empire, or that the Parthians had any other conquerors of similar might in mind. The Parthians were fortunate that their context and cultural imperatives conspired to give them the upper hand.
Context and cultural imperatives are key to understanding why the bow is shaped and constructed so effectively. Chances are a particular material or cultural orientation determined the path taken in the construction of the bow. Evolutionary processes to improve the bow would have ensured each new model was more effective. Each warrior craftsman would have added insights gained from battle or from whatever other killing or ceremonial act the bow was used for to inform the construction of the next version.
Design is an oversimplification and distinctly modern romanticisation of an aspect of the industrial creative process. Because designers ‘design’ things does not mean that because an object was created that it had a designer or designers and was therefore ‘designed’.
A creative act does not require design, design only assists in shaping and giving form to an imperative.
A.
Nice Read!
And yeah looks like Andrew Sabatier comes from General’s party :)
Yeah those lame spider logos on their shields were never going to protect them. Should’ve hired a more accomplished logo designer!
20,000 dead, is that really good design?
Not sure if it’s a good design, but definitely an efficient one.
Good Design or Wicked Design? ;-)
Fantastic!
The Romans just had someone working in house….
I must say I’m a bit surprised the Romans decided on red shields. Perhaps they could have painted a target logo on them to make it even easier for the Parthians to spot them. :) Actually, I’ve heard that the British Army insisted on wearing red coats in the field until the early twentieth century. Which would have been fine if they had been subduing the natives of Mars, but didn’t work so well for them in the Crimea.
A response to Andrew Sabatier,
I completely disagree. I think the exact reason for the construction of the bow was to ward of enemies. That is the reason for the construction of any weapon, is it not?
I think you’re missing the point of this excerpt. This was not posted in a designer’s blog because the Parthians had certain materials available to them, or that their “cultural imperatives conspired to give them the upper hand,” it is the fact that design, above all else, was the reason for such astounding victory.
The process of industrial creation is synonymous with design in this day and age.
Jesus, man. The ego on some designers rivals that of hiphop thugs and bankers.
“The Parthians did not prevail because they had a better general, they prevailed because they had a better designer.”
lol wow
Technically, they had a better engineer :)
I find the statement a bit farfetched as well.
I wouldn’t be suprised if the “designer” of that bow wasn’t a designer at all, but either a hunter or some military guy. A lot can be achieved with basic common sense. There’s a reason a bow if found in a lot of cultures and people made their own modifications over the millennia/centuries.
The civilisations in what’s now Latin America, never used the wheel for carts, pottery wheels and similar tools, yet they built gigantic structures like the cultures in Eurasia and Africa. Were their designers worser than us? I doubt it. (more info @ http://www.precolumbianwheel.com/ )
A sidenote: keep in mind that “designers” as we know it is something of the last centuries. Even graphic and industrial design are different crafts with some overlapping areas.
I didn’t think I’d need to label this as a little light-hearted humour (in as much as 20,000 deaths can be found funny), but alas, my mistake. :) Some of the comments have given me a chuckle though, so thanks for that.
Oh don’t worry, David, I saw the humor. I’m also glad you got a laugh out of the posts, that’s what it’s all about, right?
So true, Carson.
Now there’s the most random post I’ve seen all week—I thought I’d stumbled across the History Channel Blog ;)
You make a good point though David, give me something to think about!
I think everybody needs to come down a notch. Keep the alternative style posts coming David.
Calm down, guys. This isn’t meant to be taken seriously.
Thanks for the post, David. A laugh never hurt anyone ;)
omg this is just too funny!
Andy Bailey commented a blog post of mine about some beautiful alcohol bottle designs, saying that although he doesn’t drink he buy some of them just for the bottles.
So, so far we’ve attributed design to killing people and driving them to drink. What a profession, ha.
Oh, I hope you and all the designers here have not yet killed anyone. :D
Very funny fact, btw. I don’t get why the spring has to be laminated though…
nice title and great hook but I was a bit disapointed by the conclusion
Better design or better technology?
” I think the exact reason for the construction of the bow was to ward of enemies. That is the reason for the construction of any weapon, is it not?”
what about hunting for food? can you classify a rabbit an enemy?
I was studying the picture before I read the full article for a clue to how this “defeat by design” might have gone down. My mind started conjuring up all kinds of crazy ideas like ‘maybe they had artist paint an army of cut out warriors as a decoy?’ then I read… and it’s a better bow lol. That will work too I guess (though I like my idea better).
Oddly morbid post. I’m glad I’m a graphic designer and not a product designer, or I would feel odd about my (professional) heritage at the moment. Though I suppose war propaganda isn’t much better.
I heard on the history channel that roots of the term “parting shot” can be attributed to the how the Parthian cavalrymen perfected twisting their bodies in such a way as to deliver devastating shots as they rode away.
As a designer, it kind of makes you want to invade Rome..