Abstract:Ancient wall paintings reflect the politics, economy, culture, art and state of technology of their periods. By using current technologies to analyze the ancient wall paintings, combined with related ancient documents, one can generate information on the painting technique used, estimate the age of the wall paintings and evaluate their historical, scientific and artistic values. In this work, samples from murals in the pilgrimagecorridor walls at Jokhang Temple, Lhasa, Tibet were analyzed by Raman and polarized light microscopy, scanning electron microscopy with Xray microanalysis, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and Xray diffraction. The wall painting of the Buddha Sakyamuni was likely to have been painted between the late Qing Dynasty and 1980s. The structure layer was made of "aga" soil, which is consistent with traditional Tibet documents. However, the white layer has lithopone, magnesium carbonate and calcite, which is different from that recorded in the document. In the document, a white or yellow glue mix was suggested for this layer.The pigments are used by traditional Tibetan painting methods.