An archaeologist, Hungarian Ferenc Redo examines a metal coin of a Holocaust victim's collection in the Balatoni Museum in the town of Keszthely, 200 km west of Budapest on May 22, 2019. A collection of thousands of antique coins found buried in a house that was part of a war-time ghetto in Hungary for Jews has posed a riddle for historians. ATTILA KISBENEDEK / AFP.

KESZTHELY (AFP).- A vast and "unique" trove of antique and Roman-era coins, unearthed in what was one of Hungary's wartime Jewish ghettos, is proving a conundrum for historians. Thrilled with the chance discovery of the 2,800 gold and silver coins spanning decades and continents, researchers are in the dark however about who collected and then hid them. That the coins were buried under a house whose one-time owner, the likely collector, is presumed to have been murdered in the Holocaust deepens the mystery. According to a Hungarian Jewish organisation, the hoard also exposes how gaps remain in what is known about Hungary's Jews during World War II. The current owners of the house in the town of Keszthely, 190 kilometres (120 miles) southwest of the capital Budapest, stumbled across the coins in February during work on the cellar. They were likely hidden by a Jewish owner who was later deported to a Nazi German death camp in 1944, said Balint Havasi, director of Keszthely's Balatoni Museum where the ite ... More