It survives only in a single manuscript codex, now British Library, Add MS 14,643.
[2] This manuscript was copied in 724 and the copyist added a single folio of text to the end, containing a list of caliphs translated from Arabic.
[3] Robert Hoyland identifies seven parts to the original Chronicle of 640:[2] The writings provide an eyewitness account to the Islamic conquest in the mid-7th century (the 10th century according to the Seleucid year numbering): In the year 634, indiction 7, on Friday 4 February[4] at the ninth hour, there was a battle between the Romans and the Tayyaye of Muhmd in Palestine twelve miles east of Gaza.
The Arabs climbed the mountain of Mardin and killed many monks there in [the monasteries of] Qedar and Bnata.
There died the blessed man Simon, doorkeeper of Qedar, brother of Thomas the priest.