This paper presents a physics-based framework for assessing seismic risk and guiding mitigation strategies for the Religions Complex (The Mugamma’ al Adyan) in Old Cairo, an area of immense historical and architectural significance. As part of the Italy–Egypt bilateral research initiative “CoReng”, the study combines geoscience and earthquake engineering to address the challenges of preserving vulnerable cultural heritage sites exposed to seismic hazards. A key innovation lies in the use of Physics-Based Ground Motion Simulations (PBGMS) to generate site-specific seismic input by modeling the full wavefield propagation from the seismic source to the structure. A suite of 24 seismic scenarios was developed by systematically varying source parameters (depth, dip, strike, rake) of the 1992 Dahshour earthquake, incorporating both aleatory and epistemic uncertainties into the modeling process. The resulting synthetic accelerograms and response spectra, focused on the minaret of Princess Tatar al-Higaziya, provide a reliable seismic input for vulnerability assessment and structural performance analysis. The outcomes demonstrate how advanced simulation techniques can enhance resilience planning and support conservation efforts in data-scarce regions.
Fasan et al. (Thu,) studied this question.