Not an egyptologist, but I did just get back from Egypt recently, so here's some anecdotal evidence. Even during the hottest summer months, there was still acti

Not an egyptologist, but I did just get back from Egypt recently, so here's some anecdotal evidence. Even during the hottest summer months, there was still activity happening at dig sites. This is usually when all the digs shut down, so I would assume that there would be even more activity during the winter months. There were still occasional restoration projects (even got to spend a few minutes helping one), but they were few and far between. Many had completely halted, probably as a result of Zahi Hawass's ousting and the evaporation of tourist funds. On the other hand, a lot of the expeditions are funded by outside universities, and they bring several jobs to local Egyptians. Because of the perceived security issues, many tourists are staying away from Egypt, which is crippling many people's ability to make a living, and the government's ability to focus on cultural work. Several people I spoke with were once making a good living in the tourism industry, but have since turned to trying to find work with expeditions when they can. Unfortunately, there are a lot more people out of work than there are jobs. The security situation is interesting. My wife and I were alone for two weeks, and felt perfectly safe. The government knows that tourism and archeology/egyptology bring jobs and dollars, so they focus their police presence on protecting those areas. Sure enough, there are police and military everywhere. However, if you watch them closely, you will see that they are not operating in top condition. I'm not sure if fatigue or inexperience contributes to this, but you can see it. Guards waving people through checkpoints without searching them at all, weapons being left far out of reach, soldiers sleeping on guard, etc. There was one attack on a checkpoint near us while we were there, resulting in the death of two police officers. That didn't seem to have an affect on the rest of the security force. A few days after we left, there was an attack in Luxor directed at tourists. I'm not sure, but my guess is this was a wakeup call for them. Thankfully the attack largely failed, but I'm sure it's caused massive harm to an already hurting economy.