to the western wall of the actual Temple. The earliest Jewish use of the Hebrew term "ha-kotel ha-ma'aravi", "the Western Wall", as referring to the wall visible today, was by the 11th-century poet Ahimaaz ben Paltiel. Wailing Wall The name "Wailing Wall", and descriptions such as "wailing place", appeared regularly in English literature during the 19th century. The name Mur des Lamentations was used in French and Klagemauer in German. This term itself was a translation of the Arabic el-Mabka, or "Place of Weeping", the traditional Arabic term for the wall. This description stemmed from the Jewish practice of coming to the site to mourn and bemoan the destruction of the Temple and the loss of national freedom it symbolized. Al-Buraq Wall Muslims have associated the name Al-Buraq with the wall at least since the 1860s. Hillel Halkin claims that the "traditional Arabic term" El-Mabka, "the Place of Weeping", which he says gave rise to the English name "Wailing Wall", was cast aside by the Palestinians in the 1920s, as a result of rising tensions with the Jews over rights at the site, and was replaced by "El-Burak". Location, dimensions, stones Prayer section vs. entire wall The term Western Wall commonly refers to a exposed section of a much longer retaining wall, built by Herod on the western flank of the Temple Mount. Only when used in this sense is it synonymous with the term Wailing Wall. This section faces a large plaza and is set aside for prayer. In its entirety, the western retaining wall of the Herodian Temple Mount complex stretches for , most of which is hidden behind medieval residential structures built along its length. There are only two other revealed sections: the southern part of the Wall (see Robinson's Arch area), which measures approximately , and is separated from the prayer area by just a narrow stretch of archaeological remains; and another, much shorter section, known as the Little Western Wall, which is located close to the Iron Gate. The entire western wall functions as a retaining wall, supporting and enclosing the ample substructures built by Herod the Great around 19 BCE. Herod's project was to create an artificial extension to the small quasi-natural plateau on which the First Temple stood, already widened in Hasmonean times during the Second Temple period, by finally transforming it into the almost rectangular, wide expanse of the Temple Mount platform