Let’s hear it for ambitious kids! A 12-year-old boy named Hussein was desperate to get a job on Englishman Howard Carter’s archaeological dig in Luxor, Egypt. It was 1922 and Carter was struggling.

A study suggests that the first of seven key pyramids in Egypt, the Step Pyramid of Djoser, was built using a hydraulic lift. Dated to about 4,500 years ago, this would move up the introduction of ...