Gave myself a week to date a Roman coin hoard. Took 3 months instead.
I found a small hoard of about 40 Roman bronze coins from the 3rd century AD, just outside of Colchester. I figured I'd clean them up, ID them, and have a nice little write-up done in a week. But man, the corrosion was way worse than I thought. Some of them were stuck together in a clump and I had to carefully separate them using a toothpick and distilled water over a month. Then the patina on half of them was so thick I couldn't read the legends at all. I ended up having to email a specialist at the British Museum to help ID a few that just looked like green discs. Three months later, I finally got them all catalogued and photographed. Has anyone else here dealt with a group find that took way longer than you planned? How do you keep from getting frustrated with the slow work?