Beccut cippus
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| Beccut cippus | |
|---|---|
 Lapidary item in the Makthar Museum: the stone known as the Beccut cippus. | |
| Type | Cippus |
| Material | Limestone |
| Discovered | 1953 Carthage archeological site |
| Place | Makthar Museum |
| Culture | Roman Africa |
The Beccut cippus is an archaeological artifact found in 1953 in Makthar (Tunisia). It is preserved in the town's archaeological museum, opened in 1967.
Along with the famous Makthar harvester inscription unearthed in the late 19th century and preserved in the Louvre, the cippus is one of the few epigraphic documents found on this site to have been engraved with a poetic text.
This third century text evokes the memory of a deceased young woman. Despite the clumsiness of the wording, written in a provincial context, it provides information on the social and religious life of the town, and is a valuable insight into the Romanization of this part of Roman Africa and the integration of populations of Numidian origin at the end of the High Roman Empire.
Ancient history of Makthar up to the 3rd century
The Beccut cippus is a funerary monument discovered in Makthar by site supervisor Herranz during the exploration of the Roman road leading from Makthar to Ausafa through the Wadi Saboun valley.[1]
The site of the town of Makthar, occupied in ancient times, was the seat of a powerful Numidian city allied to Carthage, which Masinissa seized shortly before the final fall of the Punic city in 146 BC at the end of the Third Punic War. The influence of Carthaginian civilization remained strong for a long time, as evidenced by the Neo-Punic stelae dating from the 1st century and found in excavations at the site known as Bab El Aïn.[2] From the end of the 1st century, the city benefited from Roman peace and experienced a degree of prosperity.[3] The institutions of the city, which became a free city in 46 BC, were permanently influenced by the Punic era, with the maintenance of three shophets until the beginning of the 2nd century. From that century onwards, triumvirates replaced them.[2]
The Romanization of the city began with some families gaining citizenship from the reign of Trajan, and others the equestrian rank during the reign of Commodus.[4] The old Numidian city had previously become a colony under the name of Colonia Aelia Aurelia Mactaris between 176 and 180.[3][5] The city's zenith came at the end of the 2nd century, during the reign of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, with intense civic activity and a surface area of over 10 hectares. In the 3rd century, it became the seat of a bishop[6] as the town's name is mentioned four times in lists of bishops from councils, including that of Carthage in 256.[7] The end of prosperity is dated to the end of the first third of the 3rd century with the restoration of the damage caused by the Crisis of the Third Century that took place after 285.[8]
The Beccut cippus dates from the years 250–260.[9] It evokes the memory of a young woman, Beccut, who died in her early twenties and was cremated according to local tradition.[10] The Makthar archaeological site has revealed fifteen funerary poems dated between the 3rd and 6th centuries, but the earliest ones date no further than the end of the Severan dynasty and make up a group of nine artefacts to which the Beccut cippus belongs.[11]
Discovery and study
According to Jean-Marie Lassère, the study of the epigraphy of African monuments must be cautious because of the "compartmentalized regions": funerary customs and formulas spread in different ways.[12] The excavations at Makthar have yielded numerous figurative representations, all of which are useful for dating monuments. However, the form of the letters must be treated with caution, given the provincial nature of the work, which was carried out by "unskilled country lapidarists", and paleography is not sufficient for dating.[13]
The cippus was discovered in 1953,[14] published the following year (B.A.C., 1954, p. 120);[15] an in-depth study was published in 1970. The site revealed four other cippes in 1965.[1]
The area in which it was found contained numerous remains of monumental mausoleums.[1] The inscriptions found during the excavations reveal around 15% of the members of the college of local decurions in the second third of the 2nd century, and no members of the lower social classes.[16]
