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Archaeologists have found 24 almost perfectly preserved bronze statues in Italy believed to date back to ancient Roman times.

The statues were discovered under the muddy ruins of an ancient bathhouse in San Casciano dei Bagni, a hilltop town in Tuscany about 100 miles north of the capital city, Rome.

The statues are of Roman gods such as Hygieia and Apollo and are around 2,300 years old.

One expert said the find could "rewrite history".

The statues - which were discovered alongside 6,000 bronze, silver and gold coins in mud beneath the ancient baths - date back to between the 2nd Century BC and the 1st Century AD.

The Italian culture ministry said the period of time period saw "great transformation in ancient Tuscany" as the area changed from Etruscan to Roman rule.

Baths in Roman times were for bathing and relaxing and a bit like today's leisure centres where lots of people could go and enjoy spending time in large pools of warm water.

There was also ritual significance to the water, for example at the site of ancient Roman baths in Bath in the UK, a hot spring of water was thought to be a link to the underworld and the goddess Sulis Minerva. People would throw presents like jewellery and money into the pool of water so she would look after them and their families in the afterlife.

Similarly, the offerings discovered thrown into the baths in Tuscany, were of great value suggesting that they belonged to wealthy Etruscan and Roman families, from landowners, to possibly even Roman emperors.

Jacopo Tabolli, an assistant professor from the University for Foreigners in Siena who lead the dig suggested that the statues had been covered in hot bath waters in a sort of ritual. "You give to the water because you hope that the water gives something back to you," he said.

The Etruscan civilization occupied a large area of central Italy before the Roman empire, including the modern-day regions of Lazio, Umbria and Tuscany where they built some of the earliest cities in Europe. The Etruscans also had a strong influence on Roman culture and traditions.

As Christianity became the dominant religious faith in the region, the baths were closed down, but not destroyed.

Instead the pools were sealed with heavy stone pillars while the statues were left in the sacred water.

The statues, which were preserved by the water, will be taken to a restoration laboratory in nearby Grosseto, before eventually being put on display in a new museum in San Casciano just south of the city of Florence.

Massimo Osanna, director general of Italy's state museums, said the discovery was "certainly one of the most significant bronze finds ever made in the history of the ancient Mediterranean".