In our study, four full-scale through-mortise and tenon joints were designed and manufactured according to the engineering practice regulations by the Qing Ministry of Works. Three of them were strengthened with various materials:bamboo bracing, angle steel and carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) sheet. We carried out low cyclic reversed loading tests by improving the quasi-static test setup for mortise and tenon joints to analyze the failure mechanism, load bearing capacity, ductility, energy dissipation capacity and process of separation between mortise and tenon. The results show that in comparison with the reference joint, the peak loads in the positive direction of the joints strengthened with bamboo bracing, angle steel and CFRP sheet increased by 92.4%, 54.6% and 63.0% respectively, while the peak loads in the negative direction increased by 61.5%,75.7% and 39.0% respectively. The stiffness of the reference joint and the joint strengthened with angle steel were almost the same initially, and both increased at first and decreased then as the angle of rotation increased. Meanwhile, stiffness of joints strengthened with bamboo bracing and CFRP sheet were dramatically greater than that of the reference joint initially and showed a monotone decrease with an increase of the angle of rotation. In addition, the extracting length of tenons of joints strengthened with bamboo bracing and angle steel were obviously smaller than that of the reference joint at the same rotation levels, indicating that bamboo bracing and angle steel both had contributions to delaying the extraction of tenon.