Lima, May 20 (ANDINA). The Peruvian Foreign Ministry Wednesday delivered 542 pieces of cultural relics recovered from abroad to the National Institute of Culture (INC), Vice Foreign Minister Nestor Popolizio said.

Among the recovered relics, there are pieces made of gold, pottery, wood and textiles corresponding to the pre-Incan cultures of Mochica, Wari, Vicus, Recuay, Paracas, Chancay and Moche. They have an estimated market value of 85 million U.S. dollars.

One of the most flamboyant is a gold headdress with a shape of octopus, said Popolizio during the delivery ceremony, Xinhua news agency reported.

The headdress was recovered by the British police. It belongs to the Moche culture, which flourished some 1,000 years ago in the current location of La Libertad province in northwest Peru.

Popolizio said that among these relics, 334 were seized in the United States, one in Sweden, and 207 were part of a private collection of Costa Rican citizen Leonard Patterson.

Patterson has presented his prize collection to different Spanish cities. His personal collection was comprised of a total of 1,760 pieces, many of which are from Peru and other Latin American countries.

Peru has recovered 4,500 pieces of cultural relics in the last three years.

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