What water-control device did Leonardo da Vinci design to raise water using linked buckets?

Leonardo da Vinci designed a bucket-chain water lift to raise water through a sequence of linked containers.

His hydraulic studies include mechanisms that lift water from a lower level to a higher one. In a bucket-chain arrangement, containers attached to a continuous chain travel downward, fill, and then rise, carrying water to the discharge point. Turning a wheel or crank supplies the motion. Such devices were useful in irrigation, drainage, and construction, where water had to be moved against gravity.

Leonardo did not invent the general idea of lifting water with buckets. Related devices were known in the ancient world and remained in use for centuries. His contribution was to analyze and redraw mechanical arrangements, improving understanding of how chains, wheels, and containers could work together.

This design should not be confused with the Archimedes screw, which raises water through a rotating helical surface inside a tube. Leonardo studied screw-based water devices too, but a linked-bucket lift has a different operating principle and a different visual structure.