16 April, 2012 3:38PM AEST

Ancient Egypt's lure

It's slightly macabre but our fascination with the mummified bodies of men, women and children from ancient civilisations continues to draw captivated audiences to exhibitions here and around the world.

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Head of visitor programs at the Queensland Museum Bernadette McCormack agrees.

"I think it's because when you actually come and see artefacts like this you look at them and you still can't quite understand how people three thousand years ago actually did these exquisite things.

"There is still that awe and mystery around it - and even though we can now read hieroglyphics and with show's like this and cat scanning - there's still that unknown that fascinates people.

Mummy: Secrets of the Tomb tells the story of life and death in ancient Egypt through the virtual unwrapping of Nesperennub, a priest who lived and died in Egypt nearly 3,000 years ago.

Mr Taylor says the exhibition is enhanced by the use of modern technology, which gives the audience a detailed insight into Nesperennub at the time of his death.

"We've used CT scanning and 3D visualisation to look underneath the wrappings of a really important Egyptian mummy, so what you see is the mummy completely untouched in the case."

He says it was important that the accompanying pieces (including amulets, canopic jars, sarcophagi, statues, and sections from the book of the dead) were selected for the exhibition to tell the narrative of "how you get from the life on earth into the next life."

"For the ancient Egyptians there was a very clear path for doing that.

He says after reviewing the British Museum's extensive Egypt collection a number of pieces are chosen to interact with each other in the exhibition space.

"We need to make sure we're not duplicating too much of the same kind of imagery or inscriptions - we want things that will pick up different aspects of the subject.

While the scale of grandeur of the Pharaoh's that stretched across the dynasties leave audiences in awe Mr Taylor believes Queensland audiences may connect more with the story of Nesperennub.

"I think it's one that's easier for people to connect with. The great kings - very impressive but they're kind of remote figures in a way.

"Here, you come face to face with the Egyptians who are - if you'd lived in Ancient Egypt yourself, maybe they're the kind of people you would have been.

He says the star of the show - Nesperennub - is one of the best preserved mummies in the British Museum's collection, but gives an insight into a very human world.

"On top of his head is a clay bowl inverted over the back part of his skull - very strange, we've never seen anything like that anywhere else on an Egyptian mummy.

"We think that actually what this represents is a bit of a botched job of embalming where they accidentally got this bowl stuck with sticky resin and they couldn't remove it so they wrapped him up quickly and left it inside.

"That's the human interest aspect of this whole process...we think of the ancient Egyptians as a people governed by ritual - the practical side of it is they were very human, they made mistakes like anybody else."

The collection on display at the Queensland Museum from April 19 - Aug 19