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Algebra was invented (in my opinion) strangely late. Only in the last five hundred years has it really existed, but isn't it a relatively simple concept? A number being represented by another symbol to show it has a value to be determined.

This is difficult in Greco-Roman numerals, or any numeral system where letters and numbers are the same, but Babylonians did have separate symbols for numbers.

Of course this is unlikely and difficult but what I am asking is not how to get there but the consequences of such. Assuming that the concepts of zero and infinity are also known, what could have happened had algebra been developed in the Bronze Age?
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