The Mesopotamians invented the first pump about 3000 B.C.; they had previously used buckets alone to water their crops in the Nile River valley. Their shaduf, or swipe, was a long wooden lever that pivoted on two upright posts situated on the riverbank. A pole with a bucket attached to it was suspended from one end of the lever, with a counterweight fixed to the other end. To operate the water pump, the user pushed the pole down so that the bucket filled with water; the counterweight then helped to raise the bucket, which was emptied into a trough that led to the irrigation ditch constructed between the river and the fields. The shaduf became popular throughout the Middle East, and was the only form of water pump used in that region for the next two thousand years.

Around 500 B.C., three new water-lifting devices came...