(Reuters) - Forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi stole ancient Roman artefacts when they fled Tripoli, bundled them into sacks and planned to sell them abroad, Libya's new rulers said on Saturday as they displayed the haul for the first time since its recovery.

The artefacts -- a collection of 17 stone heads, most the size of tennis balls, and terracotta fragments dating from the second or third centuries A.D. -- were recovered on August 23 when anti-Gaddafi fighters intercepted a convoy of loyalists heading south from Tripoli.

"All of them (the artefacts) date back to Roman times but with very strong local influence," said Saleh Algabe, director of the Antiquities Department in the new Libyan government....