The United States has returned hundreds of Inca and pre-Columbian artefacts to Peru, following an investigation into smuggling.

More than 400 items have been handed over to the Peruvian government, having originally been stolen from numerous sites in the Andes by grave robbers and purchased on the black market by collectors in the US.

The hoard includes a stunning royal cape of vibrant macaw and parrot feathers, a 3,500-year-old pottery vessel, gold jewellery, burial shrouds and rare quipus, cords used by ancient civilisations as an accounting system.

Confiscated in south Florida by US officials, the artefacts were seized from Italian immigrant Ugo Bagnato, 66, who specialised in selling rare historical items.

Specialists have been identifying the items looted from the Andean nation and believe they are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The return of the artefacts to Peru was announced by a US customs official following an investigation into illegal smuggling that saw Bagnato charged and sentenced to 17 months in a US federal prison.