For the technology requirements of appreciating mural paintings, according to the advantages of spectral imaging and spectral analysis, the usages of spectral imaging in appreciating mural paintings were discussed, which could improve the traditional expert experience identification method by providing more information in the appreciation and assessment. Spectral method is an important scientific analysis method with many characteristics, like non-contact, lossless, scientific, accurate and quantifiable, which can be used to appreciate mural paintings. Firstly, the application was analyzed from different functions. Secondly, the measurements of mural paintings in HAN XIU tomb were processed by spectral analysis, primary component analysis, independent component analysis, relevance judgment and interactive processing, which were for proving the real affection of the theory analysis. At last, based on the experiments, some key technologies were summarized, for example, normalized measurements, analysis of characters of image and spectral data, processer of image and spectral data. The experiment results showed that the spectral imaging and analysis were useful for the recognition of pigment, the extraction of hidden information, the enhancement of weak information, and the classification and recognition of different properties. Meanwhile, some exploratory works can be unfolded, like modified child analysis, repairing of paintings (such as repairing mural paintings in HAN XIU tomb).