[3] Burgess was the first editor and he continued in that role until the end of 1884 when failing eyesight forced him to hand over to John Faithfull Fleet and Richard Carnac Temple.

)[10] The journal had an archaeological and historical focus, and in the late nineteenth century that naturally meant that epigraphy (the study of inscriptions as writing rather than as literature) would be one of the principal subjects covered in its pages.

[12] Illustrations in the Antiquary were used by scholars such as Bhandarkar, Bhagvanlal Indraji, Georg Bühler, John Faithfull Fleet, Eggeling and B. Lewis Rice to decipher important inscriptions,[13] and in many cases their translations remain the definitive versions to this day.

[11] Over one thousand plates were included in The Indian Antiquary and the Epigraphia Indica over the first fifty years of publication, but having the illustrations produced abroad was not without its disadvantages.

Its publication of Punjab folktales was the first attempt to classify the events on which folk tales were based[4] and the pioneering work on north Indian folklore of William Crooke and Pandit Ram Gharib Chaube was printed in its pages.