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.

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.

[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.

[9] It evokes the memory of a young woman, Beccut, who died in her early twenties and was cremated according to local tradition.

[11] 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.

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.

), led Jean Mallon to describe this as a new school of paleography, "marking the advent of modern Latin writing".

[14] The text contains prosodic errors, and the author of the inscription appears to be an "improvised poet", according to Édouard Galletier.

[32] A comparative study of the pillar altars found on the archaeological site by Gilbert Charles-Picard suggests that the Beccut cippus dates the death of Makthar's harvester after 260, while the epigraphic study notes that "the writing is not identical"; the harvester died at an old age and his ascension may date from the city's period of prosperity, between 210 and 235.

[16] The cognomen of African origin can be seen, in the words of Jean-Marie Lassère, as "the revenge of indigenous tradition, relegating the gentilice, symbol of Romanization, to the shadows.

"[35] As for the husband's name, ILONI, this is not explained by the Punic language, and specialists suggest the reading MILONI due to haplography, the dropping of one of the letters.

"[16] Although the document gives no information on the couple's social position, it is assumed that they belonged to the city's "well-to-do bourgeoisie.

"[16] The senatorial and equestrian families were not easily distinguishable in the city, and the Curiate was open to people of modest means "by dint of hard work.

[10] The city's wealthy social classes honored Magna Mater and Liber, and Bacchism is reflected in the greater presence of Dionysiac symbols on funerary monuments, such as a pine cone on Beccut's cippus.

[37] Beccut may have been a Bacchante, and "Euthesia" may have been one of the "mystical vocables", the Eu prefix "belonging to the technical language of medicine.

"[38] The cult of Isis imposed on its followers "a severe discipline, even to the point of asceticism", and Beccut's epitaph accords with these principles of life.

"[38] The text of the cippus is of the encomium type, and the poet evokes "banalities and clichés": "Beccut was modest and had a son.

[40] "Married very young", she did not die in childbirth because of the allusion to divinity, nor because of an accident: illness undoubtedly took her, "in a manner as banal as it was distressing.

[39] However, the use of the invocation to the Manes gods, early on the African monuments of the Proconsular capital or Dougga, is late "as one moves away from Carthage.