Thanks Kevin, nice link.
I believe that what you see as a fleur-de-lis, i was imagining as a singing mouth . It is on the side of the mid-size 'drum', having 4 concentric circle-sets on top ?
Perhaps there might be another interpretation, (interesting, whether or not true), that of a heart . The four circle-sets of the top could have represented the heart's four chambers and blood directions, (outside of itself : to the body, to the lungs, from the body, from the lungs), which could have held symbolic importance to them . (I'd also like the circles on top to represent beats, which they could have, but note that the heartbeat doesn't have four distinct peaks) . If the idea is viable, the two abbreviated spirals above the lozenge could have represented breath, (life, vitality), flowing to and from the heart, by way of the lungs . It's a stretch already, but to take it further, the spiral in general could have held meaning to them as the symbol of breath ; (perhaps suggested by the way water may spiral when draining from a container, and make a breathing or sucking sound doing so) . Extending this, a spiral in one direction might have symbolized inhalation, in the other, exhalation . Where spirals and lozenges are found together, (as at Newgrange), these could have symbolized the union of breath with heart and/or the song/chant,
(ambiguity is useful here, as the beating of the heart could be said to be its chant, and emotion has classically been the heart's song) . If they thought about it this way, they might have pursued, (in some traditions or subcultures), the possibility of singing or chanting during both exhalation and inhalation---an uninterrupted sound . If so, a ceremonial site or device connected with the practice might be indicated by the presence of lozenges and both counter- and clockwise spirals
Well worth considering :
Quote
From page 503-4
The diamond-shape or lozenge is a symbol commonly found, from Ireland to Persia and beyond . It occurs naturally in latticework, such as basketwork, or crisscross floor and wall decoration, and for this reason much caution is needed in interpreting it, and in deciding whether individual cases were self-consciously symbolic, or even self-consciously lozenge-shaped . Is the trelliswork motif on Irish monuments---for instance at Newgrange---to be seen as a set of lozenges, or does it occur by an accident of geometry ? What was in the mind of the person responsible ? Simple lozenges are common on pottery from an early period . In the oldest Balkan forms (from the seventh to the fifth millennium) there are lozenge-shapes with what are plainly human associations, for they are very often found on the female form, frequently on the belly, and thus suggesting a fertility symbol . The lozenge occasionally alternates with spirals or zigzags, seen by some interpreters as phallic snakes, shells, or water . A piece of bone (a horse mandible) found in Kendrick's Cave, Llandudno, and dating from about 8000 BC, was covered with a zigzag decoration . Clay plaques of around 5000 BC from eastern Serbia mix nested lozenges with spirals---the two supreme geometrical Neolithic symbols . (One example is drawn in Fig 194.) One could multiply occurrences almost endlessly, but to what purpose ? Just as today many different meanings are regularly read into the shape, it might be that, in the past too, the lozenge was many things to many people . In some of its contexts it seems to have had a connection with the Sun or Moon, but even if some of its meanings were in a broad sense astronomical, others were certainly not, and the earliest were almost certainly not.
The genesis of even the simplest of symbols is often complicated . Suppose, for example, that t religious architect were to have marked out two parallel lines towards the rising midwinter Sun and then to draw across them two parallel lines (with the same spacing) towards the setting midwinter Sun . A lozenge-shape would result, its angles depending on geographical latitude and local horizon . With the Moon, another lozenge would be produced, of a different shape . Suppose now that from an earlier time there was a certain cluster of ideas in which the lozenge already had some sort of symbolic role---an evolving cluster, perhaps, but quite possibly one that first had sexual meaning . If cosmic religions were giving rise to experiment with alignments towards the risings and settings of the stars, Sun, and Moon, then the new 'astronomical' symbol might very easily have been made to relate to that older cluster of ideas . Such an association might have served to reinforce old associations, and so take on a life of its own . Earlier occurrences of the symbol need not have been overtly astronomical, and even if the context was later transformed into a symbolism of alignments, an ordinary person, asked about symbolic meanings, might well have answered in terms of the older symbolism---the Moon, fertility, or whatever it happened to be.
From page 517-18
One of the finest examples of chalk carving from prehistoric times has incised designs that seem to share in whatever tradition it was that the lozenge shape expressed . The Folkton drums, now in the British Museum, are among the most problematical of artefacts . Three carved chalk cylinders, they were found in 1890 by William Greenwell on the site of a small Bell-Beaker round barrow at Folkton, in the East Riding of Yorkshire . They were found not with the main burial but accompanying the skeleton of a child---one at the head and the others at the hips---just inside the outer ditch . The body of the child was laid north-south, with the head to the north, and to someone standing by it, the bearing of the centre of the mound was ten or a dozen degrees north of west . The cylinders measure roughly between 10 and 15 cm in diameter, and between 8 and 12 cm high . Their geometrical marking---to which stylized eyes and nose were added in the manner of megalithic art---could easily be found a broad interpretation along the lines provided here for the simple lozenges, but like almost all decoration in this style it is not carefully and exactly ruled . The very portability of the drums, not to mention the eyes they bear make one wonder whether they were originally used as movable markers for an observer's position . Zigzag decoration is associated with single or double 'eyes' on numerous portable plates and cylinders from Spain and Portugal, many looking as though they too might have been used as portable markers for ritual observing positions . (See Plates 12 and 17.) They were often allocated one to each body, in passage graves, but that they do not belong only there is suggested by the strong resemblance many of them have to the much larger static upright human figures found in the same regions.
The top of the largest Folkton cylinder---like the others it is a domed top---has a series of concentric circles at the centre of a four-pointed star-like figure . This could be interpreted as a symbol of the key directions of solar or lunar extremes in relation to the central barrow (the circles); but once again, since the decoration is so inexact, there is no possible way of confirming this idea.
The same is true of the many other lozenge and chevron shapes found on Neolithic and Bronze Age artefacts . Indeed, a pottery vessel from Folkton has a fine lozenge-creating crisscross of lines over its entire base, and surely nobody would dream of relating this directly to a solar or lunar ritual . The fact remains that like the cross of Cristianity of the crescent of Islam, the lozenge and the chevron could easily have been taken over from an older symbolism and given a precise meaning, before being eventually repeated again and again without much thought for it.
Source -- Stonehenge: a new interpretation of prehistoric man and the cosmos -- by John David North, (ISBN-10 0684845121)
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