Archaeologists* recently uncovered the story of an ancient and terrible war written on the steps of a pyramid.

　　The story tells of two cities in the Mayan* empire, a mighty civilization that disappeared more than 1,000 years ago, locked in an unending and bloody battle.

　　The writings were found on the stone staircase of a pyramid surrounded by a thick rain forest in Guatemala*, a country in Central America. The story of the war was written in hieroglyphics*, an alphabet made up of pictures and symbols.

　　Archaeologists learned of the tale-telling pyramid when a hurricane ripped a tree covering the stairs from the ground.

　　“I got a small group together, and we went down [into the pyramid] immediately,” said Federico Fahsen, one of the directors of the project. They descended a staircase covered with dirt and found one of the longest pieces of Mayan writing. The group spent three months decoding the images, and then told the world about the long-forgotten war.

　　“[The story] gives us an idea of how bad things were,” said David Stuart, a hieroglyph expert at Harvard University. “It shows that these couldn’t have been very happy times.”

　　(Difficulty: senior)

　　1. According to the article, the Mayans described in the story were living a ______ life.

　　A. happy

　　B. peaceful

　　C. miserable

　　2. Mayans used ________ to write about their life.

　　A. pictures

　　B. pictures and symbols

　　C. symbols

　　3. It was quite______to decode the writing discovered in the pyramid about the war.

　　A. easy

　　B. hard

　　C. fun