the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 20 May 2025
Safeguarding Cultural Heritage: Integrative Analysis of Gravitational Mass Movements at the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut, Luxor, Egypt
Abstract. The 3500 years old Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut with its unique architecture is a key Egypt Cultural Heritage Site and the best-preserved temple in Deir El-Bahari (Luxor, Egypt). The neighbouring temple of Thutmose III in a similar geological setting was buried by a major historic rock slope failure originating from the 100 m vertical limestone cliff behind the Deir El-Bahari temple complex. The project “High-Energy Rockfall ImpacT Anticipation in a German Egyptian cooperation (HERITAGE)” aims to use gravitational mass movement hazard analyses, Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) and Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) for deformation and topographic change analysis, ambient vibration analyses, and rockfall runout modelling of potential failures to systematically assess rockfall hazards. The non-invasive nature of our methods is crucial for safeguarding cultural heritage, as it allows for monitoring without physical contact with the site, preserving both the integrity and the safety of historically significant areas. This study is one of the first to transfer and integrate well-established monitoring techniques from mountainous areas to Egyptian World Heritage Sites.
HERITAGE is a cooperation between the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and Cairo University (CU) focusing on the analysis and assessment of the rock slope stability behind the archaeological heritage in Deir El-Bahari. Here we show the remarkable potential of transferring established methods from mountainous regions to a world-famous cultural heritage site. We demonstrate the capabilities of our integrated approach in a challenging climatic, geomorphological and archaeologically sensitive environment, and produce the first event and impact analysis of gravitational mass movements at the Temple of Hatshepsut, providing vital data towards future risk assessment.
Competing interests: One author is a member of the editorial board of the Copernicus journal Earth Surface Dynamics.
Publisher's note: Copernicus Publications remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims made in the text, published maps, institutional affiliations, or any other geographical representation in this paper. While Copernicus Publications makes every effort to include appropriate place names, the final responsibility lies with the authors. Views expressed in the text are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher.- Preprint
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Status: final response (author comments only)
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RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-2007', Fritz Schlunegger, 22 Jul 2025
Dear Editor, dear Authors
This paper combines various surveying techniques with the aim of estimating the occurrence and locations of potential hazards within a cultural heritage site. It has a strong applied component and, as such, offers a valuable contribution to the otherwise science-focused publications typically featured in this journal. The manuscript is well structured and thoughtfully conceptualized, and the results and interpretations are generally well supported by the presented data.
Given the interdisciplinary and applied nature of the work, I strongly support its publication after some moderate revisions. These include a clearer organization of the introduction, a more thorough engagement with relevant previous studies, and better consideration and discussion of the uncertainties regarding the applied methods, and an improved integration of the collected dataset.
At present, the introduction lacks focus and meanders through various methodological and thematic aspects without a clear structure. I therefore recommend a complete rewrite of the introduction, with the goal of streamlining the narrative and ending with a concise and clearly formulated statement of the paper’s objectives. As currently written, the questions posed at the end of the introduction resemble statements typically found in a research proposal rather than well-defined scientific goals. They also come across as somewhat simplistic. Moreover, these questions are not adequately addressed in the body of the manuscript, leaving the effectiveness of the applied methods unclear. For instance, each of the methods employed demands a high level of specialization, involves the use of expensive equipment, and requires significant manpower. As such, their efficiency is questionable. I therefore strongly recommend restructuring the introduction and refining the articulation of the paper's goals to better reflect the blend of applied and scientific objectives that are addressed in this work.
Section 3 outlines the methods employed in this study. While all of these techniques are well established in research, the chapter is quite sparse in terms of references. It should be expanded to provide a more comprehensive overview of relevant published work. Additionally, the manuscript lacks a discussion – either in the Methods or Discussion section – on the uncertainties associated with the applied techniques. What are their limitations? What is their level of accuracy? How does the selected survey impact these? This critical information is largely missing and should be addressed to better contextualize the results and support their interpretation. The same concerns the use of the RAMMS models. As noted above, this software has been extensively tested – for example, in Bolliger et al. (2024), where model parameters were calibrated using observed debris flow events at the Illgraben. There are also several other studies in which the applied methods have been thoroughly tested and parameter spaces systematically explored. The authors should therefore conduct a more comprehensive literature review and integrate relevant previous work on these modeling approaches to better contextualize their application in this study.
Finally, the discussion section primarily focuses on the individual methods in isolation. However, it would be valuable to adopt a more holistic perspective on the insights gained from applying multiple methods to a single site. Specifically, the discussion could address how the combination of results contributes to our understanding of sediment transfer processes – from the rock face to the depositional areas – and how this is influenced by the geological pre-conditioning of the site. Although some geological context is provided early in the paper (e.g., a stratigraphic log and descriptions of fractures and faults), these aspects are not meaningfully integrated into the discussion. Incorporating this information would significantly strengthen the interpretation and relevance of the findings.
Specific comments:
Line 33: This paper does not really report on the impact of rockfalls and slope failure over 3 millenia – this statement appears to largely over-stated.
Line 44: research on the stability of the surrounding the Temple…. Something is missing here.
Line 50: ….lower mechanical strength in comparison of Alpine rock walls – can you make some more specific statements about the difference?
Lines 70ff: There is a large body of literature on the RAMMS software. In Bolliger et al. (doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-1035-2024), we present an overview on where and how RAMMS::DEBRISFlOW has been applied in the past years. I apologizes for self-selling our work here, but I invite the authors to have a look at this paper and particularly focus on the articles that are mentioned there.
Line 90: The Dier E-Bahari…. (‘The’ is missing).
Line 90: …. Opposite of Luxor city
Line 110: What is the dip direction of these beds? This could be an important information if the scope is to assess the hazards related to mass failure processes.
Line 115: The … Formation is described in detail….. (‘is’ is missing)
Line 115: …. By King et al. (2017), who subdivide (and not subdivides)….
Line 114: A further stratigraphic subdivision…
Line 120: ….the geological setup can be reduced to a typical brittle on ductile structure… What do you mean by this? What is the evidence for brittle and ductile deformation?
Lines 124/125: The sentence starting with ‘Pawlikowski and …’ sounds a little bit strange and needs to be rewritten.
Line 124: What are these structural features? Where do they occur in the surveyed area? Some information is given in the following sentences, but I cannot really get a full picture. Could the realted features be shown on Figure 1, for instance? Zones of mechanical weaknesses are very important for any hazard assessments, so fractures and faults would be one of the first features I strongly suggest to map. In fact, such information needs to be presented in this work as well, and the resutls of the survey should then be compared with such geological information.
Line 136: Abdallah and Helal (1990)….
Line 140: features that could…. (comma is not needed)
Line 145: This might justify the statement in the introduction (line 33) about the survey over millenia. But nevertheless, the sentence in line 33 is an over-statement.
Line 145: The reference to Figure 5 is too early. Figures should be referred to according to their order. So far, Figure 1 has been mentioned; then next one would then be Figure 2 (but not Figure 5).
Line 147: This entire section 2.4 can be deleated. The types of failure processes should be elaborated in the discussion and do not need to be listed as hypotheses. This would be ok for a research proposal, but not for a scientific paper. Alternatively, if previous research has already shown that these types of failure processes have occurred in the past, they can be listed as given information in section 2.2.
Line 234: These values need to be compared to what has been proposed in literature. In Bolliger et al. (2024) we found m-values that were one magnitude lower, but we found similar x-values as applied here. As mentioned above, a literature review on RAMMS::DEBRISFlOW is e.g., given in Bolliger et al. (2024).
Line 244: Figure 3 should be mentioned before Figure 6 can be referred to (same comment as above).
Line 317: Figure 4…. (‘4’ is missing)
Line 315 ff: How do the results depend on the input parameters? I guess that there is a sensitiviey analyses on this, but where are the related results presented?
Line 335: How where the best internal friction parameters determined? Where is the corresponding information? Some data is given in the appendix, but it is not enough to fully appreciate the debrisflow modelling results.
Line 360 ff: Shouldn’t this be part of the Methods section?
Bern, July 22nd 2025
Fritz Schlunegger
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-2007-RC1 -
AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Benjamin Jacobs, 31 Jul 2025
Dear Mr. Schlunegger,
thank you very much for your swift and constructive review of our manuscript. We have read your comments with great interest and are confident that they will help improve the quality of our work. Your suggestions and expertise regarding the RAMMS software are particularly valuable to us, and we will begin revising those sections as soon as possible. Once the discussion is closed and all reviewer comments are available, we will provide a detailed response addressing each point.
Best regards,
Ben Jacobs
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-2007-AC1
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AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Benjamin Jacobs, 31 Jul 2025
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RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-2007', Anonymous Referee #2, 13 Aug 2025
Dear Authors and Editors,
this manuscript presents the application of established mountainous geomorphology methods (Terrestrial Laser Scannig (TLS), InSAR, RAMMS modelling and vibration analyses) to assess rockfall and granular flow activity at the Temple of Hatshepsut in Luxor, Egypt. TLS, InSAR and vibration analyses identify hotspots of geomorphic activity at the cliffs next to the temple, while the modelling approaches aim to predict possible future events and their impacts on the temple and its visitors.
The study is clearly written, well structured, and uses methods well suited for such an application. Its novel adaptation of geomorphological approaches to an archaeological setting is particular commendable, offering possible opportunities for interdisciplinary research between geomorphology, archaeology and geology. I therefore recommend this manuscript for publication in ESurf.
Prior to publication, however, some points should be considered.
Main points:
- The uncertainty/error estimation of the TLS point clouds is not entirely clear. While the registration errors for both point clouds are provided and a LoD of 0.03 m is stated, it is not explained how this LoD was calculated. Is it based on a 95% confidence interval? Was it calculated based on stable areas only? Please clarify. Additionally, could you elaborate on why the M3C2 algorithm was chosen over a basic DoD approach?
- As noted in your discussion, RAMMS::DEBRISFLOW was developed for debris flows with significant water content. To me, it is unclear whether this is the first study to apply the model to dry granular flows. If so, the statement that is “[…] a simple and geomorphologically accurate simulation tool for dry flows (granular flows)” (lines 448-449) appears overstated, given that the validation is based only on a single photograph from 1892. I recommend addressing this limitation in more detail and discussing the restricted validation options in greater depth. If there are previous studies using the model in a similar way, please cite them.
Furthermore, the presented granular flow simulations are only reconstructions of two historical events. Why did you not apply the calibrated model to the rock tower in A 02, for example?
- The manuscript briefly mentions the retention wall at the temple only twice. From my point of view, the existence of this wall means that the rockfall problem has already been recognised and countermeasures have been taken. As this is directly related to the study, I would like to suggest that you provide some more detail about the retention wall. For example, when was it built? Does it serve its purpose based on the rockfall model?
Minor points:
- I would like to suggest going through the manuscript again in detail and checking the sentence structure and consistency (e.g. figure numbers). Below, I have listed a few of such points that caught my attention.
- Please double check all abbreviations in the manuscript. These should be defined when first mentioned, but not again in subsequent references.
- In accordance with the ESurf guidelines, please use the neutral BCE (before the common era) instead of BC (and avoid a mixture of both).
Lines 31-32: Double use of the word “worldwide”
Line 32: “[…] has been emphasized in many publications […]” – please name some.
Line 40: Use BCE instead of BC
Line 44: A word is missing here
Line 45: It is the Valley of the Kings, not the Valley of Kings
Line 50-53: It is not clear whether this “benchmark field study” is the present study or another one. Please clarify
Line 86: Please define LiDAR
Line 90: Typo: It is the Deir El-Bahari Valley
Line 115: A word is missing here, please refine
Line 125: “to” is missing here
Line 136: The brackets of this in-text citation are incorrect
Line 150: Maybe even mark the rock tower in figure 1 for better visualization
Line 162: Please define MSA as Multi Station Adjustment
Line 201: “A02” should be “A03”
Lines 201-202: The block sizes seem to be quite random at this point in the manuscript. Please consider referring to S1 here
Lines 206-208: Why did you not just analyse the block sizes and shapes behind the retention wall?
Section 3.4: Information on the time / duration of data acquisition is lacking
Line 243: HVSR was already defined
Line 244: SSR was already defined
Line 247: SSI was already defined
Line 264: What does “significantly” mean here? Is it based on a statistical parameter?
Line 270: How was the total rockfall volume calculated? With or without the LoD?
Line 290: I do not understand why table 1 shows that velocities exceeding +/- 5 mm/a are significant
Lines 293-295: Based on S8 I assume that these locations represent A02 and A03. If so, please state
Line 301: AOI was already defined
Lines 306-309: Here, the locations are called “A 01” etc. But before they are called “A01” etc. Please decide on one spelling
Line 317: Figure number is missing
Lines 322-324: If the rocks hit the retention wall – is it a “hit” or a “miss”?
Lines 324-325: Please refine this sentence
Line 332: Figure number is incorrect
Line 377: Typo: “basis”
Lines 382-383: Please refine this sentence
Line 431: Typo: “scarce”
Line 441: Type: “it” is missing
Lines 452-454: You could discuss using a monoplotting method to better assess information based on a single historical photograph
Line 494: Use BCE instead of BC
I would like to thank the authors for preparing and submitting this research article, and I congratulate them on a well-executed and valuable study.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-2007-RC2
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