Immaculately preserved bronze statues discovered in Tuscany ‘will rewrite history’

The 24 statues were preserved by mud and warm water in an ancient basin

More than 20 statues have been preserved under the mud in hotsprings (ITALIAN CULTURE MINISTRY/AFP via)

More than two dozen immaculately preserved bronze statues of Greco-Roman deities, which date back to around the first 1st century AD, have been discovered nestled between the ruins of an ancient bathhouse in Tuscany.

The assembly of ancient Roman figures were found in San Casciano dei Bagni, a hilltop sanctuary in the Siena province, some 100 miles north of Rome, where archeologists have been exploring the mud-caked, sacred thermal baths since 2019.

Culture minister Massimo Osanna dubbed the find one of the most remarkable discoveries “in the history of the ancient Mediterranean” and the most important since the Riace Bronzes, a giant pair of ancient Greek warriors, were pulled from the sea in 1972.