Leonardo da Vinci’s screw pump used the principle of a rotating spiral to lift water.
Leonardo studied and drew screw-based water-lifting machines, building on the ancient device now known as Archimedes’ screw. In a typical screw pump, a helical surface rotates inside a cylinder or trough, carrying water upward from a lower level to a higher one. The concept could serve irrigation, drainage, or construction.
Leonardo’s contribution was not the invention of the basic screw principle; ancient Greek tradition already associated it with Archimedes. His notebooks show how Renaissance engineers analyzed and adapted earlier mechanisms for new practical designs.
This pump is different from Leonardo’s air screw, which was a proposed flying machine with a helical rotor. Both use spiral geometry, but one is a water-lifting device and the other concerns vertical flight. That distinction prevents a common mix-up between two unrelated inventions.