Il Tesoro di Misurata: un cantiere permanente di ricerca sulla monetazione del Tardo Impero Romano

The preliminary results of a research project on the Misurata Hoard -- the largest coin hoard of antiquity -- were presented at the previous AIAr congress; the present work reports on the continuation of the project, concerning further microstructural investigations as well as the new application of electrochemical and analytical techniques. All the destructive analyses were carried out on coins similar to those of the hoard. As regards the surface silver layer, observed on the coins, we investigated two consequences of its possible endogenic nature: the presence of inward branches and the compositional similarity with the buìk silver-rich phase. We also report on the in situ x-ray Fluorescence campaign: the variations observed in the silver content for different issues and mints are consistent with the monetary events of the time. Finally we characterised the corrosion products -- mainly tenorite -- and detected the presence of mercury in the alloy, which is probably due to the refining technique used for silver.