Thutmose IV, the 8th Pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty of Egypt, who ruled in approximately the 14th century BCE, lay down for a nap while on a hunting trip.

His chosen resting spot was, in turned out, just under the head of the Sphinx, the oldest known monumental sculpture in Egypt, and one of the most famous in the world.

It was thought to have been created by the ancient Egyptians of the Old Kingdom during the reign of Khafre, around 2558-2532 BCE. But by around 1400, the Sphinx had been buried by drifting sands up to its shoulders.

Thutmose later told everyone he had a dream in which the Sphinx told him that if he cleared away the sand, found its paws and restored it, he would become the next pharaoh.

This he did, and duly became the next ruler, a story he told to legitimise his kingship.

It's a story we have no hope of verifying, but it does perfectly illustrate one fact: even the ancient Egyptians were obsessed with the ancient Egyptians.

Is it any wonder, then, that Australia is currently in the grip of a serious case of Egyptomania?

And Canberra is about to get its own dose of the ever-fashionable fever with a major exhibition opening next week at the National Museum of Australia.

Discovering Ancient Egypt includes more than 220 objects from the Rijksmuseum Van Oudheden (National Museum of Antiquities) in the Netherlands.

It comes hot on the heels of last month's opening of Ramses & the Gold of the Pharaohs at the Australian Museum in Sydney, and will be followed next June by the massive Pharaoh from the British Museum at the National Gallery of Victoria.

All three are blockbusters, bound for success, crowds and great merchandise.

But what is it about Egypt that gets us all so excited?

Daniel Soliman, senior curator at the Rijksmuseum Van Oudheden, is quite measured over the phone when describing some of the wonders that will be on show in Canberra from next week.

He is, after all, a trained Egyptologist who works with one of the most famous collections of Egyptian antiquities outside of Egypt.

But he can't disguise his enthusiasm when describing his first encounter with the ancient kingdoms.

"Like many Egyptologists, I was inspired at an early age," he says, over the phone from Leiden.

'My father was Egyptian. I was born in Egypt, raised in the Netherlands ... I went to the Cairo Egyptian Museum for the first time when I was nine years old, and I was completely smitten.

"I knew this was something that would fascinate me for the rest of my life, and it did."

And he knows he's one of many. This show contains all the greatest hits - coffins, jewellery, artworks and mummies - but it's also a lesson in how embedded Egypt is in so many other cultures.

"I think it's the fact that ancient Egypt feels, on the one hand, very distant, but on the other hand, very close," Soliman says.

"It has to do with two things. It's the fact that so much of its archaeology has been preserved quite well. And I think secondly, that ancient Egypt really has become part of stories that we tell each other globally to this day."

Desert tombs protected many things from the ravages of time, and were sources of fascination even for the Romans and, later, the Arabs and Napoleon. By 1922, Howard Carter was following in many thousands of footsteps over many hundreds of years when he uncovered - or rediscovered - Tutankhamun's intact tomb.

"There're so many stories that we tell each other about ancient Egypt - [it's] part of the holy books of three major religions," Solimon says.

"There are historians of the ancient world, who visited and wrote about ancient Egypt. Stories we still tell each other today. There are obelisks from ancient Egypt that were moved to Europe already in Roman times, and were visible in the landscape up until today.

"And in the 19th century, ancient Egypt becomes part of the European colonial project and with that also, many stories about ancient Egypt are being told through the eyes of visitors, scholars, and with that also, artists. So we have novels and plays and music and even architecture in Europe that talk about ancient Egypt and that have been dispersed globally.

"Those stories really become part of the collective memory."

As he speaks, the exhibition, which was most recently at the Western Australian Museum in Perth, is already taking shape in Canberra.

The spectacular coffins are laid out, and a set of intricately carved stone doors - false doors that were placed in tombs as a way of communicating with the dead - are upright to be examined up close.

The mummified people, five of them, are resting safely in glass cases in a special, darkened room with an audience warning at the door. The cases will be behind curtains, meaning there's nothing passive about going in and having a look.

Two of the mummies are women - Sensaos and Ta(net)kharu or Tadis - and one is a man, Harerem. The other two, a man and a woman, are unknown. All come with the chance to look at recent, non-invasive CT scans displayed through a digital interactive.

National Museum curator Craig Middleton says while there have been various iterations of this particular show, the Australian versions are spun through a colonial lens.

"It's hard to recast the story of a collection of Egypt - it's a colonial story," he says.

For instance, he says, when the mummies were unpacked - for want of a less tactless word - earlier this month, Ngunnawal and Ngambri elders performed a welcome ceremony.

"We also had a protection ceremony ... to protect visitors and staff from any kind of energies that may emerge from these people," he says.

"We've done a lot of engagement with not only First Nations, but also Egyptian Australians, as the cultural heritage owners. And so all of these kinds of protocols and activities that we do come out of those consultations. We take that really seriously."

And in keeping with the show's theme of scholarship and discovery, it's not just the stuff we associate with tombs and the afterlife on show.

Alongside the intricately decorated coffins - papyrus sheets from the so-called Book of the Dead scrolls, striking art, glitzy jewellery and sculpture - there are everyday items, reminding us of all the people who once teemed around the pharaohs.

There's a small, handwoven basket that would have once contained bathroom items or linen, and doesn't look a million miles from something you might find at Ikea, just a couple of thousand years older and not mass-produced.

There's also household pottery, objects for worship and an ancient board game.

And so much of it is strangely familiar, from the hieroglyphs carved into stone, to the turquoise trinkets that may have once been in someone's pocket.

And so much of it seems to have existed, like the ancient Egyptians, with thoughts of the other side.

"I think the other appeal of ancient Egypt is this concept of an afterlife. We all, regardless of your religious affiliation, still think about what's next," Middleton says.

"I mean, I'm sure people were scared of death. We can't say for sure that they weren't, but they planned for that afterlife, and the belief system firmly suggested that if you pass those trials and tests by the gods, that you actually got reborn again and again in the afterlife.

"And your afterlife was pretty damn similar to your everyday life. You'd have a farm, you'd plow the fields."