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Well before those (pun intended) there were many variations on counter weighted water lifters - from source (well, or lower channel) to buckets or to irrigation

• card_zero 12d ago
  So you raise the water, lowering the counterweight, and the balance makes it easy. Then you need to get the counterweight up again, so you ... haul it up with great effort? Or lower the water back down the well? I think I've seen pictures of this type of thing for use with irrigation channels: like a giant spoon that pivots on a post, with a weight opposite the bowl. Still unclear how the return motion with no water isn't just as hard as lifting water with no counterbalance. Here it is, the shadoof! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadoof https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadoof Doesn't seem to explain though. "The bucket can be lowered by the operator using their own weight to push it down; the counterweight then raises the full bucket without effort." So then, raise the water using your own weight, don't bother with the counterweight? Oh, I suppose the point is to have a bucket of water conveniently stationary at shoulder height, but held only tenuously in place when it's empty in the depths of a well, rather than the other way round. Right.