section_path: History/Timeline of ancient tool development
section_name: Timeline of ancient tool development
paragraph_text: Timeline of ancient tool development
  
  Many tools were made in prehistory or in the early centuries of recorded history, but archaeological evidence can provide dates of development and use.
  
  Several of the six classic simple machines (wheel and axle, lever, pulley, inclined plane, wedge, and screw) were invented in Mesopotamia. The wheel and axle mechanism first appeared with the potter's wheel, invented in what is now Iraq during the 5th millennium BC. This led to the invention of the wheeled vehicle in Mesopotamia during the early 4th millennium BC. The lever was used in the shadoof water-lifting device, the first crane machine, which appeared in Mesopotamia c. 3000 BC, and then in ancient Egyptian technology c. 2000 BC. The earliest evidence of pulleys date back to Mesopotamia in the early 2nd millennium BC.
  
  The screw, the last of the simple machines to be invented, first appeared in Mesopotamia during the Neo-Assyrian period (911–609 BC). The Assyrian King Sennacherib (704–681 BC) claims to have invented automatic sluices and to have been the first to use water screw pumps, of up to 30 tons weight, which were cast using two-part clay molds rather than by the ' lost wax ' process. The Jerwan Aqueduct (c. 688 BC) is made with stone arches and lined with waterproof concrete. The earliest evidence of water wheels and watermills date back to the ancient Near East in the 4th century BC, specifically in the Persian Empire before 350 BC, in the regions of Mesopotamia (Iraq) and Persia (Iran). This pioneering use of water power constituted perhaps the first use of mechanical energy.
  
  Mechanical devices experienced a major expansion in their use in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome with the systematic employment of new energy sources, especially waterwheels. Their use expanded through the Dark Ages with the addition of windmills.