The earliest literary reference to a water-driven, compartmented wheel appears in the technical treatise "Pneumatica" (chap. 61) of the Greek engineer Philo of Byzantium (ca. 280−220 BC). In his "Parasceuastica" (91.43−44), Philo advises the use of such wheels for submerging siege mines as a defensive measure against enemy sapping. Compartmented wheels appear to have been the means of choice for draining dry docks in Alexandria under the reign of Ptolemy IV (221−205 BC). Several Greek papyri of the 3rd to 2nd century BC mention the use of these wheels, but don't give further details. The non-existence of the device in the Ancient Near East before Alexander's conquest can be deduced from its pronounced absence from the otherwise rich oriental iconography on irrigation practices. Unlike other water-lifting devices and pumps of the period though, the invention of the compartmented wheel cannot be traced to any particular Hellenistic engineer and may have been made in the late 4th century BC in a rural context away from the metropolis of Alexandria.