The introduction to Amenemope's list of names described the purpose and the content of the list. Amenemope's list is the best-preserved example of a widespread practice in ancient Egypt.

Beginning of the teaching for clearing the mind, for instruction of the ignorant and for learning all things that exist: what Ptah created, what Thoth copied down, heaven with its affairs, earth and what is in it, what the mountains belch forth, what is watered by the flood, all things upon which Re has shone, all that is grown on the back of earth, excogitated by the scribe of the sacred books in the House of Life, Amenemope son of Amenemope . . .

Source: Alan H. Gardiner, Ancient Egyptian Onomastica (London: Oxford University Press, 1947).