The Dongyang tomb site, lying in Xuyi city, Jiangsu province, is an important historical site dating to the Qin and Han Dynasties. Many fine lacquer wares have been excavated from these tombs, and they could provide precious information on the lacquer-making techniques in the state of Guangling during the Han Dynasty. In order to deduce the lacquer-making techniques of that time, cross-section, X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and the fourier transform infrared spectrometry (FTIR) analysis were used to study two wooden body urushiwares from the site. The cross-sections of the lacquer films showed that the plain urushiware had two lacquer layers: a plaster layer and a plain lacquer layer. The colored urushiware had a plaster layer, a ground layer and a painting layer. XRD results showed that quartz (SiO2) and albite (NaAlSi3O8) were in the plaster layer, and that cinnabar (HgS) was the pigment in the red lacquer layer. XRF showed that the major elements of the cinnabar were Hg and S, with traces of Ca, Si, Cu and Fe. The lacquer film was also examined by FTIR. The absorbance at 1576 cm-1 and 1630 cm-1 were attributed to benzene skeletal vibrations. Analysis indicated lacquer-making techniques for these samples consisted of three steps. 1) Lacquering of the plaster layer; raw lacquer and a mixture of minerals containing fine granular quartz and albite were applied to form a film about 0.1-0.2mm thick; 2) Lacquering the priming layer, this layer is about 0.02-0.09mm thick; 3) Painting the uppermost layer, in which cinnabar was used as red pigment; the presence of minor elements, such as Ca, Si, Cu and Fe, suggested the cinnabar came from a mineral source.