What Leonardo da Vinci machine used a rotating drum to lift water from a lower level?

Leonardo da Vinci studied an Archimedes’ screw as a machine for lifting water from a lower level.

The device consists of a helical surface inside a cylinder or wrapped around a central shaft. When the screw rotates, water is carried upward through the spaces formed by the helix. Leonardo drew and analyzed versions of this ancient mechanism as part of his studies of hydraulics and mechanical engineering.

The machine was not Leonardo’s invention. It is traditionally associated with Archimedes, the Greek mathematician and engineer who lived in the third century BCE. Leonardo’s contribution was to investigate, represent, and adapt existing hydraulic ideas in his notebooks rather than to originate the principle.

This device is easy to confuse with Leonardo’s aerial screw, but the two machines had different purposes. The aerial screw was a proposed flying machine that moved through air; the Archimedes’ screw was a water-lifting mechanism. Leonardo also designed canals, locks, pumps, and other hydraulic systems, making water control a major part of his engineering work.