The archaeologists could hardly believe their eyes as, one by one, the bronzeA brown metal made of copper and tin. statues were lifted out of the mud. Intricately detailed, they depictedShowed. gods, emperors, young men, old women and children - and they were in extraordinarily good condition. One expert¹ called them "some of the most significant bronzes ever produced in the history of the ancient Mediterranean".

The statues were discovered in the ruins of an ancient bathhouse in San Casciano, a small hilltop town 100 miles north of Rome. It was fed by hot springs² which were popular in Etruscan and Roman times and still attract visitors today.

Some have parts missing, but others are completely intact. Five are as much as one metre tall. Around 6,000 gold, silver and bronze coins were found beside them, as well as religious objects. The coins are thought to have been thrown into the baths for good luck.   

Many of the statues represent figures connected with healing, such as the goddess Hygieia, who is shown with a snake wrapped around her arm. The names of local Etruscan dignitariesA person who has an important position in a society, such as in the government or church. can still be read on some of them.

Professor Jacopo Tabolli, who led the dig, thinks they may have been ritually immersed in the water by people who came to the springs for healing. "You give to the water because you hope that the water gives something back to you," he says.

The baths, which included fountains and altars, were part of a network built by the EtruscansAn early people who ruled over much of Italy before being conquered by the Romans. . Their civilisation thrived in central Italy for 500 years before the Romans.

The two peoples fought a series of wars up until the 1st Century BC, when the Etruscans' territory became part of the newly established Roman Empire. But Professor Tabolli believes that the baths were a haven of peace:

"Even in historical epochsParticular periods in history. in which the most awful conflicts were raging outside, inside these pools and on these altars the two worlds, the Etruscan and Roman ones, appear to have coexisted without problems."

The Romans made the baths more luxurious, and they were visited by emperors including AugustusThe first Roman emperor who ruled from 27BC to AD14. Also known as Octavian. .

In the 5th Century, the baths were sealed off by heavy stone columns - possibly by Christians who disapproved of their pagan associations. The columns had to be removed by Professor Tabolli's team to make the dig possible.

It is the most exciting archaeological discovery in Italy for half a century. In 1972, a diver off the south coast saw an arm sticking up from the sandy seabed. It turned out to belong to one of a pair of larger-than-life statues, now known as the Riace bronzesTwo Greek statues of warriors found in the sea near Riace, Italy, in 1972..

According to Professor Tabolli, the find at San Casciano is the "greatest collection of statues from ancient Italy, and the only one whose context we can entirely reconstruct".

Once the statues have been restored, they will be displayed in a new museum in the town.

Yes: There has long been a debate about how far the Romans were influenced by the Etruscans. This find strongly suggests that their statues must have been inspired by Etruscan ones.  

No: We already knew from previous finds such as pottery made by the Etruscans that they were able to produce extremely sophisticated works of art. This discovery simply confirms that.

Or... "Rewriting history" suggests that there is a version that everyone has agreed on up until now. But history is about how events are interpreted, and some people will always see things differently.