They were truly fortunate
That said, archaeology is not an easy job. Sometimes, the explorers come across things on the earth’s surface or that of water effortlessly but during other times, they only come across a single piece of stone that warrants a lot of care when they start to excavate so that they do not end up breaking the stone. Normally, this kind of excavation will take days. This is because only part of the whole object can be seen but the reality is that the biggest part of it is hidden underneath the earth.