It is believed that the Arabic numeral system may have originally come from India.

In 771 AD, a treatise on astronomy was brought from India to the Arabian Peninsula that used the Indian numerical system. The new number writing system used one symbol for each number.

Before that time each unit place has a different set of number symbols. For example, the Roman numeral CCXXII represent 222. Notice, that our modern version of Arabic numbers has the same symbol for each digit place. Not so in olden times.