  The BeppoSAX 4.5-10 keV High Energy Large Area Survey has covered about 80
square degrees of sky down to a flux of F(5-10keV)~5E-14 cgs. Optical
spectroscopic identification of about half of the sources in the sample (62)
shows that many (~50%) are highly obscured AGN, in line with the predictions of
AGN synthesis models for the hard X-ray background (XRB, see e.g. Comastri et
al. 1995). The X-ray data, complemented by optical, near-IR and radio
follow-up, indicate that the majority of these AGN are ``intermediate''
objects, i.e. type 1.8-1.9 AGN,`red' quasars, and even a few broad line, blue
continuum quasars, obscured in X-rays by columns of the order of
logNH=22.5-23.5 cm-2, but showing a wide dispersion in optical extinction. The
optical and near-IR photometry of the obscured objects are dominated by galaxy
starlight, indicating that a sizeable fraction of the accretion power in the
Universe may actually have been missed in optical color surveys. This also
implies that multicolor photometry techniques may be efficiently used to assess
the redshift of the hard X-ray selected sources.

Astrophysics