Screw-cutting lathe name "screw-cutting lathe" carries a taxonomic qualification on its use—it is a term of historical classification rather than one of current commercial machine tool terminology. Early lathes, many centuries ago, were not adapted to screw-cutting. Later, from the Late Middle Ages until the early nineteenth century, some lathes were distinguishable as "screw-cutting lathes" because of the screw-cutting ability specially built into them. Since then, most metalworking lathes have this ability built in, but they are not called "screw-cutting lathes" in modern taxonomy. The screw has been known for millennia. Archimedes devised the water screw, a system for raising water. Screws
Archimedes death of Archimedes which suggests that he may have been killed while attempting to surrender to a Roman soldier. According to this story, Archimedes was carrying mathematical instruments, and was killed because the soldier thought that they were valuable items. General Marcellus was reportedly angered by the death of Archimedes, as he considered him a valuable scientific asset and had ordered that he must not be harmed. Marcellus called Archimedes "a geometrical Briareus". The last words attributed to Archimedes are "Do not disturb my circles", a reference to the circles in the mathematical drawing that he was supposedly studying when