The development of the screw pump from Assyrian King Sennacherib Time to Archimedes

Abstract

The literary and archaeological evidence suggests that Archimedes was the first to design and construct a mechanical water-raising screw pump. Meanwhile, a discussion pioneered by Assyrian scholar Dalley, based on some bass reliefs in the palace of the Assyrian King Sennacherib (705–681 BC) at Nineveh, suggests that the screw pump was used several centuries before Archimedes in Mesopotamia. We analysed the same texts cited by Dalley from an engineering perspective. We offered a design option if King Sennacherib used a screw pump to lift large quantities of water. The design and operation principle of the water screw used during the rule of the Assyrian King Sennacherib would be different from Archimedes’ water screw pump. Archimedes’ closed-channel design, as described by Roman architect Vitruvius, connects the inside of the barrel to the outer edge of the helical flights on the screw, making it very difficult to design, manufacture and operate if cast in bronze. However, our proposal of a rotating screw in a stationary open-channel screw design was very feasible to build, optimize by experimentation and operate if only the shaft was cast in bronze and palm sheaths were coiled helically on the shaft.

ARTICLE HISTORY:

• Received 17 February 2022; Accepted 20 December 2023

Keywords:

• water pump
• screw
• Assyrian
• Archimedes
• palm trees

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Mualla Berksoy, Ph.D., who brought the debate on the origins of Archimedes’ water screw pump to my attention. I thank the reviewers for their suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

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4 A. Hugh. Clough, Plutarch's Lives the Translation Called Dryden's (1895).

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10 J. Oleson, ‘Well-Pumps for Dummies: Was There Roman Tradition of Popular, Sub-Literary Engineering Manuals?’ Archeologia dell’ Italia Settentrionale, 2004.

11 A. G. Drachmann, ‘"The Screw of Archimedes.’ (Proceedings of the Actes du VIII Congrès International d’Histoire des Sciences, Florence, Milan, Italy, 1956, 3–9).

12 S. Dalley, The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon: An Elusive World Wonder Traced (Oxford: OUP Oxford, 2013).

13 D. D. Luckenbill, The Annals of Sennacherib (Oregon: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2005).

14 R. Pleiner and J. K. Bjorkman ‘The Assyrian Iron Age: The History of İron in the Assyrian Civilization,’ Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 118(3) (1974), 283–313.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yaman Boluk

Dr. Yaman Boluk is a professor at the University of Alberta in Civil and Environmental Engineering. His academic training is in rheology and hydrodynamics. His research is on extrusion, screw pumps, slurries, polymer melts, and hydrogels spanning from the flow of aircraft anti-icing fluids on wings to wastewater flow to the construction of hydrogels for tissue engineering.