Italy's Sicily region announced the discovery of a rare collection of 27 silver Roman coins, dated between 94 and 74 B.C., found on the remote island of Pantelleria.

The discovery was made during a cleaning and restoration project by a team led by archaeologist Thomas Schaefer from the University of Tuebingen in Germany.

It was found in the Acropolis, part of the Archaeological Park of Selinunte's Cave di Cusa, part of one of the largest such sites in the Mediterranean and includes the remains of an ancient Greek colony founded in the seventh century B.C.

The discovery was on the same site where 107 Roman silver coins had been unearthed in 2010 and not far from where the three famous imperial statue heads of Caesar, Agrippina and Titus had been found a few years earlier.

The coins would have been minted in Rome and date back to the Republican age, the same period as the first find.

"This discovery ... offers valuable information for the reconstruction of the events, trade contacts and political relations that marked the Mediterranean in the Republican age," said Francesco Paolo Scarpinato, a regional councilor for cultural heritage.

Some coins appeared in the loose soil after recent heavy rains, while the others were found under a rock during the excavations and have already been cleaned and inventoried.

Schaefer speculated that the treasure was hidden and never retrieved during a pirate attack.