What Leonardo da Vinci device used screw-driven chambers to move water upward?

Leonardo da Vinci studied a water-lifting device known as Archimedes’ screw.

Archimedes’ screw is a helical mechanism inside a tube or trough. As the screw turns, pockets of water move upward along the spiral, allowing the device to raise water from a lower level to a higher one. Leonardo drew and examined screw-based water-lifting machines as part of his extensive work on hydraulics, canals, irrigation, and mechanical power.

The mechanism was not Leonardo’s original invention. It is traditionally associated with the ancient Greek mathematician and engineer Archimedes, who is said to have developed or described it in the third century BCE. Leonardo’s contribution was to study, refine, and apply hydraulic mechanisms within Renaissance engineering practice.

The device is sometimes mistaken for a pump invented by Leonardo. That wording gives him too much credit: Leonardo investigated many existing mechanisms and proposed improvements, but the screw itself predates him by well over a millennium. Modern versions remain useful for moving wastewater, grain, and other materials, although their construction and power sources vary.