Screw press
Prensa de tornillo
- Date
- c. 100 BCE · confidence medium
- Place
- Campania and Rome, Italy (described by Heron in Alexandria)
- Credited to
- Roman and Alexandrian engineers (Heron, Mechanica)
- Field
- Tools
What it is
A press that applies great continuous force through a coarse-pitch wooden screw turned with levers, used for oil, wine, cloth and paper. A direct application of the screw as a simple machine.
Pliny mentions the direct screw press as a recent novelty around 55 CE.
What it led to
- Intensive production of oil and wine on slave-run estates for export
- Fulling and pressing of textiles and of paper
- Gutenberg's printing press, derived from the wine press
- Manufacture of wooden screws and nuts using a lathe
Built on
- Archimedes' screwc. 250 BCE
- Beam-and-weight press
Made possible
- Screw-cutting lathec. 1480-1568
- Screw press coinage and rolling millc. 1550-1553
- Printing press
- Hydraulic oil press