Archimedes Screw
   I L L U S T R A T I O N S
Back to . . .

Archimedes Home Page

This section . . .

Sources
Illustrations
Engravings



Screw Conveyors
Animations
Optimal Design

Archimedes' Screw An Egyptian terracotta figurine from about 30 BC showing a man driving an Archimedes screw as a treadmill. Located in the British Museum (Department of Egyptian Antiquities, No. EA-37563), London, England.

Enlarged View: 30 kilobytes, 330 x 480 pixels.

From The New York Times, June 18, 1898; page BR408:
THE SCREW OF ARCHIMEDES

Archimedes of Syracuse, when he was in Egypt, invented a machine for pumping bilge water out of the holds of ships.   . . .  A curious model of such an instrument, probably of the late Ptolemaic period, has been found in Lower Egypt. It consists of a terra-cotta cylinder with a screw inside it, 10 inches long and 4-1/2 inches in diameter.

Archimedes Screw A fresco recovered from the House of the Ephebe in Pompeii showing a man driving an Archimedes screw as a treadmill. Now located in the National Musueum in Naples, Italy. Pompeii was destroyed by a volcanic eruption in AD 79 and this fresco was recovered in the mid-1920s.

Enlarged View: 105 kilobytes, 513 x 480 pixels.

From The New York Times, November 6, 1927; page E3:
MURAL AT POMPEII SHOWS FIRST PUMP

New and highly interesting discoveries are being made, especially at Pompeii, and almost uninterruptedly. The most recent include a mural painting giving the first authentic representation of how the ancient "cochlea," the machine for raising water supposed to have been invented by Archimedes, worked.   . . .   It is a pity that this most interesting painting also contains obscene subjects which prevent it being shown to the general public.

Archimedes Screw An Egyptian farmer turning an Archimedes screw by hand to irrigate a field. Photograph by Helen and Frank Schreider of the National Geographic staff.

Enlarged View: 102 kilobytes, 640 x 480 pixels.

Archimedes Screw Seven Archimedes screws pump wastewater in a treatment plant in Memphis, Tennessee, USA. Each of these screws is 96 inches (2.44 meters) in diameter and can lift 19,900 gallons per minute. Manufactured by Lakeside Equipment Company of Bartlett, Illinois, USA.

Enlarged Views:
  Medium Size: 75 kilobytes, 640 x 448 pixels.
  Large Size: 795 kilobytes, 2845 x 1993 pixels.

Archimedes Screw Three large Archimedes screws lift treated wastewater to aeration basins at the Fred Hervey Water Reclamation Plant of El Paso, Texas, USA. Built in 1985, the 10-million gallon/day plant treats wastewater to be injected into the Hueco Bolson Aquifer serving El Paso and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.
Archimedes' Screw The J.U. Smitgemaal pumping station in Kinderdijk, Holland, used to drain water from the Alblasserwaard polders (lowlands reclaimed from the sea) into the Lek river. Built in 1972, its three diesel-driven Archimedes screws have a capacity of 1.35 million liters per minute. This pumping station does the work of 19 windmills dating from around 1740. These windmills are still standing, earning Kinderdijk the title of the windmill capital of the world.

Enlarged View: 55 kilobytes, 800 x 600 pixels.

Archimedes Screw One of eight 12-ft.-diameter Archimedes screws used to handle rainstorm runoff in Texas City, Texas, USA. Each screw is driven by a 750-hp diesel engine and can pump up to 125,000 gallons per minute. Manufactured by Enviro Development Co. of Mountain View, California, USA. Picture scanned from Popular Mechanics (April 1980, page 62).

Enlarged View: 31 kilobytes, 640 x 417 pixels, 256 grayscales.

Archimedes Screw Two Archimedes screws in SeaWorld Adventure Park (San Diego, California, USA) used to lift water for the Shipwreck Rapids water ride.

Enlarged View: 156 kilobytes, 800 x 533 pixels.

Archimedes' Screw A water sculpture entitled “Archimedes” by artist William Pye, orginally installed in West India Quay (London, England) in 1997. The corkscrew is 4.5 meters in length.

Enlarged View: 21 kilobytes, 480 x 337 pixels.

You can also download a garden Archimedean water sculpure by William Pye here (151 kilobytes, 960 x 687 pixels).

Archimedes' Screw The WebMaster (Chris Rorres on the left) shows Terry Jones how an Archimedes screw can be used to transfer beer from one glass to another. This still, taken in Syracuse, Sicily, in 2005, is from a television documentary series entitled “Terry Jones’ Barbarians”, first broadcast in 2006.

Enlarged View: 302 kilobytes, 1600 x 1200 pixels.

Archimedes' Screw An Archimedes screw the diameter of a pencil eraser is used in this Hemopump cardiac assist system. This system maintains blood circulation during acute heart failure, minimally invasive coronary bypass surgery, and other surgical procedures.