The core was probably originally compiled around AD 600, perhaps in Alexandria in Egypt, in Greek. The core contains items traceable to earlier Alexandrian Greek texts, particularly the Stockholm papyrus and Leiden Papyrus X, which are Greek texts dated to the 2nd or 3rd century AD that contain some of the same and similar recipes. The first few recipes in the Phillipps-Corning manuscript of the Mappae clavicula were long considered integral, but they form a distinct separate entity,  the De coloribus et mixtionibus, which survives (in whole or in part) in at least 62 manuscripts. The core of the Latin Mappae clavicula is very likely a translation of a Greek text, although the original Greek text (if it existed) does not exist today.
The best manuscripts of the Mappae clavicula date from the eighth to the twelfth century.
One of the fullest collections of recipes is in a certain manuscript dated late 12th century in which about 300 recipes are presented. In this manuscript, called the Phillipps-Corning manuscript, some of the names for some materials are Arabic names (e.g. alquibriz from the Arabic for sulphur, atincar from the Arabic for borax, alcazir from the Arabic for tin). The recipes containing the Arabic names are historically later, and are in all likelihood no earlier than the 12th century. Certain earlier manuscripts have about 200 recipes.