What Leonardo da Vinci design used a screw mechanism to raise water?

Leonardo da Vinci studied Archimedes’ screw as a machine for raising water.

An Archimedes’ screw consists of a helical surface inside or around a cylinder. When the screw rotates, water trapped between the spiral and its casing moves upward. Leonardo drew and analyzed screw-based water-lifting mechanisms as part of his work on hydraulics and engineering.

The device was not Leonardo’s original invention. It is traditionally associated with Archimedes of Syracuse, who lived more than a millennium before Leonardo. Leonardo’s contribution was to study, depict, and adapt established mechanical principles for Renaissance engineering problems.

This distinction matters because Leonardo is often credited too broadly with devices he improved or reimagined rather than invented. His notebooks contain both original concepts and careful studies of older machines.