Some social anthropology: (don't shoot!)

It's amazing the intact artifacts they have found in the caves there,
with ropes, etc. reported in the press, on the former "Arabian Gulf"
on some older maps, the "Red Sea" on most today (though some have
suggested the "Persian Gulf" should be rightfully renamed the "Arabian
Gulf"). To Punt is where ancient Egyptians voyaged to some locations
where they traded for exotic items, many of the real locations, still
a mystery today. Perhaps to Axum's coastal trade site (in "American
Antiquity" a geoarchaeological analysis) Oman, Yemen and the
mysterious Socotra or Soqotra (Arabic Suquṭra), where Alexander the
Great its recorded obtained botanicals, in the Indian Ocean between
Africa and the Arabian peninsula.

I was working for a CRM firm just off Wall Street in NYC recently, and
they are in the building next to the "Irish Punt" (the restaurant is
at 40 Exchange Place) a restaurant, next door, in the building used in
a recent film, "Wolves of Wall Street" offered by William Shatner's
Sci-Fi/horror monthly DVD selection. I read that the "punt" was the
national unit of currency in Ireland, like a "dollar" until now the
"eu" is in use, Ireland in the European Union, its unit of currency
now used there. Of course, a "punt" is also a small boat which is what
I thought the restaurant was named after.

There is also the American football term, which is to drop the ball
and kick it before it hits the ground, which was once before
different, a "drop kick" kicked after it bounced up off the ground
(country-western novelty song: "Drop kick me Jesus through the goal
posts of life" has me confused). The "punt" has become synonymous for
the "fourth down" kicked ball at the other team, when the previous
efforts failed to advance the ball the required 10 yards in four
downs, though the punt is still optional. The "punt" drop kick is much
easier to control and goes usually much further than the bounced "drop
kick" it replaced.

George Myers