The Strassburg tablet, dating to c. 1800 BCE, is the oldest instance of algebra that has been found. The Strassburg tablet is often claimed to be the historical beginning point of algebra. The Strassburg tablet is a Babylonian tablet that was recently discovered.
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The Strassburg tablet among other things asks the question: "An area A consisting of the sum of two squares is 1000. The side of one square is 10 less than two-thirds of the side of the other square. What are the sides of the square?"
References
Strassburg tablet Wikipedia(Text) CC BY-SA