Screw pump different applications and handling fluids with varying characteristics. Each ‘screw pump' operates on the same basic principle of a screw turning to isolate a volume of fluid and convey it. However, the mechanical design of each is different. The primary difference is the number of screws: one, two, three or more. The screw pump was described by Archimedes on the occasion of his visit to Egypt. This suggests that the apparatus was unknown to the Greeks before Hellenistic times. A cuneiform inscription of Assyrian king Sennacherib (704–681 BC) has been interpreted by Stephanie Dalley to describe casting water screws in
Archimedes Cicero describes visiting the tomb of Archimedes, which was surmounted by a sphere and a cylinder, which Archimedes had requested be placed on his tomb to represent his mathematical discoveries. Unlike his inventions, the mathematical writings of Archimedes were little known in antiquity. Mathematicians from Alexandria read and quoted him, but the first comprehensive compilation was not made until by Isidore of Miletus in Byzantine Constantinople, while commentaries on the works of Archimedes written by Eutocius in the sixth century AD opened them to wider readership for the first time. The relatively few copies of Archimedes' written work that survived