The Archimedes screw is a machine that can raise water with much less effort than lifting buckets.

The Archimedes screw is an ancient invention that continues to be important in the modern world.
This tool had many historical uses. It was used to empty water out of leaking ships and flooded mines. Fields of crops
were watered by using the screw to pull water from lakes and rivers. It was also used to reclaim flooded land, for instance
in Holland where much of the land lies below sea level.
 There are a few different designs of the Archimedes screw, but the key feature is the angled spiral around a center
shaft (the typical screw shape). The screw can sit in a half pipe (trough) or a full pipe.
 To use the Archimedes screw to lift water, the pipe must sit on an angle with one end in a body of water. Then,
the screw must be turned with a hand crank or motor. As the bottom of the screw turns, it will scoop up water. The shape
of the screw will trap it, the water will be carried up to the top of the pipe, and it spill out.
 Today, there are many other uses for the Archimedes screw. Things like grain, sand, and sawdust flow in a
similar way to water, and so the Archimedes screw can be used to move them as well.
 Archimedes screws appear in many unexpected places. Power drills, snow blowers, augers, crop harvesters, and
many other machines operate using the principle of movement of these devices.

The screw pump is the oldest positive displacement pump. The first records of a water screw, or screw pump, date back
to Ancient Egypt before the 3rd century BC. The Egyptian screw, used to lift water from the Nile, was composed of tubes
wound round a cylinder; as the entire unit rotates, water is lifted within the spiral tube to the higher elevation. A later
screw pump design from Egypt had a spiral groove cut on the outside of a solid wooden cylinder and then the cylinder
was covered by boards or sheets of metal closely covering the surfaces between the grooves.
Some researchers have postulated this as being the device used to irrigate the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of
the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. A cuneiform inscription of Assyrian King Sennacherib (704–681 BC) has been
interpreted by Stephanie Dalley to describe casting water screws in bronze some 350 years earlier. This is consistent with
classical author Strabo, who describes the Hanging Gardens as irrigated by screws.
The screw pump was later introduced from Egypt to Greece. It was described by Archimedes,on the occasion of his visit
to Egypt, circa 234 BC.This tradition may reflect only that the apparatus was unknown to the Greeks
before Hellenistic times. Archimedes never claimed credit for its invention, but it was attributed to him 200 years later
by Diodorus, who believed that Archimedes invented the screw pump in Egypt. Depictions of Greek and Roman water
screws show them being powered by a human treading on the outer casing to turn the entire apparatus as one piece, which
would require that the casing be rigidly attached to the screw.
German engineer Konrad Kyeser equipped the Archimedes screw with a crank mechanism in his Bellifortis (1405). This
mechanism quickly replaced the ancient practice of working the pipe by treading.
a machine used for transferring water from a low-lying body of water into irrigation ditches. Water is pumped by turning
a screw-shaped surface inside a pipe. Archimedes screws are also used for materials such as powders and grains.
Although commonly attributed to Archimedes, the device had been used in Ancient Egypt long before his time.

The screw was used predominantly for the transport of water to irrigation systems and for dewatering mines or other low-
lying areas. It was used for draining land that was underneath the sea in the Netherlands and other places in the creation
of polders.
Archimedes screws are used in sewage treatment plants because they cope well with varying rates of flow and with
suspended solids. An auger in a snow blower or grain elevator is essentially an Archimedes screw. Many forms of axial
flow pump basically contain an Archimedes screw.
The principle is also found in pescalators, which are Archimedes screws designed to lift fish safely from ponds and
transport them to another location. This technology is used primarily at fish hatcheries, where it is desirable to minimize
the physical handling of fish.
An Archimedes screw was used in the successful 2001 stabilization of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Small amounts of
subsoil saturated by groundwater were removed from far below the north side of the tower, and the weight of the tower
itself corrected the lean. Archimedes screws are also used in chocolate fountains.
It was invented by the Greek scientist Archimedes, though the year is not known. Historians date the first evidence of
Archimedes screw use around 250 B.C.