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Archibald Campbell Carlleyle (Carlyle) was First Assistant to the Archaeological Survey of India from 1871 until his retirement in 1885. Carlleyle went to India to seek his fortune, initially as a tutor. He worked in the Indian Museum in Calcutta, the Riddell Museum in Agra, before joining the Archaeological Survey of India. He was appointed by Alexander Cunningham (1814-1893), Director General of the Survey.

Before his appointment, in 1867–68, Carlleyle discovered paintings on the walls and ceilings of rock shelters in Sohagighat, in the Mirzapur district. He was the first to claim a Stone Age antiquity for these. He was in eastern Rajasthan in 1871-3, the Vindhya Hills and then northwards into the plains with seasons in Gorakhpur, Saran and Ghazipur during the 1870s. He excavated a site at Joharganj in 1879. In the early 1880s he worked in the Vindhya Hills again.

When the Archaeological Survey was disbanded, Carlleyle lost his job and came back to Britain in 1885. He was 54. Living in straitened circumstances in London, Carlleyle disposed of his archaeological collection by sale or by donation to a number of museums and individuals.

William Francklin, orientalist, was educated at Westminster School from 1777 to 1781 and at Trinity College, Cambridge (1781–2). He was admitted as a cadet in the service of the East India Company in 1782 and appointed ensign of the 19th regiment of Bengal native infantry on 31 January 1783. By 1814 he had risen to the rank of lieutenant-colonel. On being invalided on 1 October 1815 he was made regulating officer at Bhagalpur. He retired from the army in December 1825, and died on 12 April 1839, aged seventy-six.

A distinguished officer, Francklin also enjoyed considerable reputation as an oriental scholar. In 1786 he made a tour of Persia, in the course of which he lived at Shiraz for eight months as the close friend of a Persian family, and subsequently wrote an account of Persian customs, "Observations Made on a Tour from Bengal to Persia" (Calcutta, 1788). His publications also include a compilation of the memoirs of George Thomas (1756–1802); translations from Persian; archaeological remarks on the plain of Troy; and historical, political, geographic, economic, and religious essays on parts of India. His religious writings include a discussion of the worship of the serpent in various parts of the world. Francklin was a member, and during the later years of his life, librarian and council member, of the Royal Asiatic Society. He was also a member of the Asiatic Society of Bengal.

Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib was a cousin, son-in-law and companion of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. He ruled as the fourth Rashidun caliph from 656 until his assassination in 661. He is considered one of the central figures in Shia Islam, the first Shia Imam and, in Sunni Islam, as the fourth of the "rightly guided" (rāshidūn) caliphs.

Lionel David Barnett was an English orientalist. He was educated at University College, Liverpool, and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took a first class degree in classics. In 1899, he joined the British Museum as Assistant Keeper in the Department of Oriental Printed Books and Manuscripts. In 1908 he became Keeper, remaining in the post until his retirement in 1936. He was also Professor of Sanskrit at University College, London, from 1906 to 1917; founding Lecturer in Sanskrit at the School of Oriental Studies (1917–1948); Lecturer in Ancient Indian History and Epigraphy (1922–1948); and Librarian of the School (1940–1947). In 1948, at the age of 77, he rejoined the British Museum, which was desperately short of staff, as an Assistant Keeper, remaining there until his death in 1960.