Napoleon's Pyramid

“Could Napoleon build a 3 meter high by 1/2 meter thick wall around France with the stone from the Great Pyramid of Giza?”

During the Napoleonic campaign in Egypt in 1798, a famous battle was fought outside Cairo in Embaba, in view of the pyramids, and is known as the Battle of the Pyramids….

It is reported that, after the battle, Napoleon and his staff officers visited the Great Pyramid. While the more adventurous officers climbed to the top, Napoleon himself was content to rest in the shade of the pyramid at its base, toying with numbers. When the officers descended and joined him, Napoleon announced that he had made a calculation of the amount of stone in the pyramid.

There was enough, he said, to build a stone wall 3 meters high and 0.3 meter thick that would enclose the whole of France. Was Napoleon right?

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