This mechanism quickly replaced the ancient practice of working the pipe by treading. German engineer Konrad Kyeser equipped the Archimedes screw with a crank mechanism in his Bellifortis (1405). 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. 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. This tradition may reflect only that the apparatus was unknown to the Greeks before Hellenistic times. It was described by Archimedes, on the occasion of his visit to Egypt, circa 234В BC. The screw pump was later introduced from Egypt to Greece. This is consistent with classical author Strabo, who describes the Hanging Gardens as irrigated by screws. A cuneiform inscription of Assyrian King Sennacherib (704вЂ“681 BC) has been interpreted by Stephanie Dalley to describe casting water screws in bronze some 350 years earlier. Some researchers have proposed this device was used to irrigate the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

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. 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. The first records of a water screw, or screw pump, date back to Hellenistic Egypt before the 3rd century BC. The screw pump is the oldest positive displacement pump. A water pump in Egypt from the 1950's which uses the Archimedes' screw mechanism

Archimedes screw pump design manual