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.