The Sumerians Blamed One King For A Drought That Lasted 300 Years — Science Confirmed The Drought

Around 2200 BC, the world’s first empire vanished — and the Sumerians wrote down exactly who they blamed. “The Curse of Agade” tells of King Naram-Sin, who tore open Enlil’s sacred temple at Nippur after the gods told him no for seven years straight. For a century, scholars dismissed it as priestly propaganda — until 1993, when archaeologist Harvey Weiss found a layer of wind-blown dust at Tell Leilan marking 300 years of total abandonment. Ice cores, cave deposits, and ocean sediments all confirm the megadrought was real. The only surviving explanation comes from the people who lived through it — and it points to one act, inside one building.