jan 1, 250 - *E: Diophantus of Alexandria

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Egypt: Diophantus of Alexandria is probably first to take steps toward an algebraic notation. He had abbreviations for each of the following: the unknown, powers of it up to the sixth, subtraction sign, equal sign, and reciprocals. He wrote Arithmetica -- one of the earliest treatises on algebra.
Syncopated algebra: Some symbolism is used, but which does not contain all of the characteristics of symbolic algebra. An example of syncopated algebra would be to write x3 + 13x2 + 5x as “unknown cubed 1, unknown squared 13, unknown 5.”

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