What Leonardo da Vinci machine was designed to pump water using a chain of buckets?

Leonardo da Vinci’s water-lifting machine using linked buckets is a bucket-chain pump.

The design used a continuous chain carrying a series of containers. As the chain moved, buckets dipped into a lower water source, rose, and emptied at a higher level. A wheel and crank supplied the motion, allowing workers to raise water for drainage, irrigation, or construction.

Bucket chains were not Leonardo’s invention; related lifting systems had been used before the Renaissance. Leonardo’s importance lies in his detailed mechanical studies and in the way he adapted established principles to practical water-management machines.

The device is often confused with Archimedes’ screw, another water-lifting technology associated with ancient engineering. A screw pump raises water along a spiral surface, while a bucket-chain pump carries separate containers upward. Leonardo studied both types of hydraulic machinery.