The canon of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

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The idea, not any one building: a fixed set of seven marvels, all of them within reach of a Greek traveller in the eastern Mediterranean and Near East, five of them Greek work. The canon was never stable in antiquity. Antipater's version includes the walls of Babylon; later versions swap them for the Lighthouse of Alexandria. The number seven appears to have been chosen before the contents were settled. Treating it as a fixed and ancient list is a modern habit.