What Leonardo da Vinci invention used a helical screw to raise water?

Leonardo da Vinci's screw pump used a helical screw to raise water.

Leonardo studied and drew screw-based lifting devices as part of his work on hydraulics. A rotating spiral surface traps water and moves it upward through a tube or channel. The principle is closely related to the ancient Archimedes' screw, which was already known before Leonardo's time.

Leonardo's importance was not inventing the basic principle from nothing. He analyzed, adapted, and illustrated mechanical systems for moving water, including pumps and canal machinery. His notebooks contain many studies of flow, vortices, locks, and water-powered devices.

The term screw pump describes the mechanism, while Archimedes' screw names the older device and its traditional attribution. This distinction matters because Leonardo's hydraulic designs were Renaissance developments of established engineering ideas, not all entirely new inventions.