| 159 9 On the Fringe Benefits of Life in the Shatter Zones of Egypt’s Empire ELLEN MORRIS Margins, borders, and bufers are areas of exceptional interest. In such con- tact zones, people who normally occupy diferent social worlds and often hold radically diferent ontological viewpoints come into close proximity or form relations based on trade or mutual antipathy for state structures. If boundaries are arbitrary, they often provide a clear glimpse of the diferences in governing strategies or access to resources. In the 1990s, for example, when one crossed the border by bus from Egypt to Israel, there was only one side of the fence on which the grass was, in fact, greener—a situation that was by no means acci- dental. In many cases, both ancient and modern, however, boundaries of real or efective state control tend to be informal and dictated by a natural demarcation in the landscape, such as a river, a mountain range, the onset of desert condi- tions, or a zone of seemingly impenetrable marshes. Even if marshes, deserts, and mountains fall within the claimed political boundaries of a state or empire, such agriculturally inhospitable ecological zones tend to serve as social and economic boundaries. The lifeways of the semipastoralists who frequent mountains and deserts, as well as the cowherds https://doi.org/10.5876/9781646423583.c009 Copyrighted material