© Reuters/Baz RatnerA Jewish worshipper covered in a prayer shawl prays in front of the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest prayer site, in Jerusalem's Old City November 21, 2011.
For centuries, many thought the wall was built by King Herod - also infamous, in the Christian tradition, for his efforts to hunt down the baby Jesus in the original Christmas story.
But archaeologists said they had found coins buried under the wall's foundations minted 20 years after King Herod's death in 4 B.C., showing the structure was completed by his successors.
The find will mean a re-think for the city's army of tour guides.
"Every tour guide ... grounded in the history of Jerusalem" had replied "Herod" when asked who built the wall, the Israel Antiquities Authority said in a statement.
"This bit of archaeological information illustrates the fact that the construction of the Temple Mount walls and (the adjacent) Robinson's Arch was an enormous project that lasted decades and was not completed during Herod's lifetime," the Authority added.
The authority said academic historians were already aware of an account by the Jewish historian Josephus that the wall was completed by Herod's great grandson.
But that report had done nothing to dispel the popular story that Herod completed the wall and the coins were the first hard evidence to back up Josephus's version.
The Western Wall was a perimeter wall of the Second Jewish Temple destroyed by Jerusalem's Roman conquerors in 70 AD.
Herod still keeps the credit for driving the expansion of the compound of the Biblical Jewish Temple, beginning what Josephus described as "the largest project the world has ever heard of".
The temple compound is now home to the al-Aqsa mosque and Dome of the Rock shrine and is revered by Muslims as the "Noble Sanctuary".
The Western Wall was built by Muslims! There never was a temple. There is no archaeological evidence of Hebrew "culture" in Jerusalem! The Jews like to call a minaret built by Suleiman the Magnificent "King David"s Tower." !!!
Please, anyone who would like to know the truth of these things get and read "The Bible Unearthed." by Israel Finkelstein, and look for the vide made by John MacCarthy called "It Aint Necessarily So". John McCarthy was held hostage by young Muslims in Beirut for five years. He had nothing to do but read the Bible for all that time. When he was released he went to
"The Holy Land," to do some investigating of his own, to find out what the fighting was all about. He spent many months with archaeoligists, both Israeli and Palestinian and others. His video was aired on some British tv. station late at night.
There was no "exodus", the story of Moses was taken (stolen) from the story about the birth of Sargon the Great who was placed in a basket which was sealed with pitch and set on the River Tigriss because a tyrant was trying to find him to kill him. His basket came to rest in the reeds at the bottom of the palace garden, the baby was rescued and brougth up in the palace and he became Sargon the Great - and the rest IS history.
There is a DESCRIPTION of a temple in the Old Testament - and it is a description of an EGYPTIAN temple!
Please, just read that book and find that video and you will be quite well informed about this very important matter.