IAC III URFA 2026 Soundtrack: Astrology at the Dawn of Civilization
- KenanYasin
- 2 hours ago
- 9 min read
About the IAC III URFA 2026 Soundtrack
The IAC III URFA 2026 soundtrack was created as an original musical companion to Astrology at the Dawn of Civilization.
Nine original compositions inspired by the lectures, landscapes, myths and ancient skies of IAC III – URFA 2026
For IAC III – URFA 2026: Astrology at the Dawn of Civilization, I wanted to create something that could carry the atmosphere of the conference beyond the lectures themselves.
The places we will visit are not neutral backgrounds.
Göbeklitepe, Karahantepe, Harran, Şanlıurfa and the wider landscapes of Southeastern Türkiye carry layer upon layer of human memory: gathering, ritual, mythology, celestial observation, sacred geography, religion and symbolic thought.
The subjects explored by our speakers seemed to belong to that landscape.
And gradually, another idea emerged:
What if the conference had its own musical language?
That question became the starting point for the IAC III Original Conference Soundtrack - a nine-track musical collection developed specifically around the themes, presentations, workshops and wider conceptual world of the conference.
LISTEN TO THE COMPLETE ALBUM
Full Album on YouTube: https://youtu.be/fn6ESC03G_E?si=oQfG2MZHb4khCesx
The album moves through very different emotional territories: from the first encounter with monumental prehistoric landscapes to Mesopotamian stargazing, the Moon traditions of Harran, sacred geography, Abrahamic memory, the Fertile Crescent, planetary order and finally a quieter reflection on the human experience beneath the sky.
The intention was never to reconstruct ancient music. Instead, the soundtrack offers a contemporary musical interpretation of the ideas explored throughout IAC III: archaeology, astrology, mythology, astronomy, sacred landscape, cultural memory and humanity’s enduring relationship with the heavens.
Its musical world combines cinematic orchestration with colours inspired by Anatolia, Türkiye, Mesopotamia and the wider ancient Near East: lyre-like plucked strings, frame drums, ceremonial percussion, flutes and reed textures, low strings, bells, atmospheric drones and occasional wordless choral elements.
The nine pieces were conceived as one album, while allowing each lecture or workshop to develop its own musical identity.
IAC III – URFA 2026
Astrology at the Dawn of Civilization
15–18 October 2026
Gaziantep • Şanlıurfa • Göbeklitepe • Karahantepe • Harran
IAC III is the third International Astrology Conference organised under Istanbul Astrology Conferences.
This edition brings together astrology with questions of archaeology, mythology, cultural astronomy, sacred landscape, religion and the history of celestial symbolism. Rather than holding the conference apart from the landscape, IAC III has been designed around it.
Participants will not only attend lectures and workshops, but encounter the geography connected with many of the themes being discussed: Göbeklitepe, Karahantepe, Harran and the cultural landscapes of Southeastern Türkiye.
The central question running through the conference is simple, but enormous:
How far back does humanity’s relationship with the sky really go?
Long before formal astronomy, written astrology or the zodiac systems familiar to us today, human beings were already living beneath the heavens, observing cycles, creating symbols, constructing monumental spaces and embedding celestial experience into culture.
The soundtrack grew directly from that question.
THE SOUNDTRACK
01 — DAWN OF CIVILIZATION
Opening Theme
Duration: 03:00
Dawn of Civilization opens the album and establishes its central musical language.
The piece introduces the world of IAC III through Göbeklitepe, Karahantepe, Harran, ancient Anatolia, Mesopotamia, sacred landscapes and humanity’s long relationship with the sky.
Lyre-like plucked strings, frame drums, low strings, airy flute, subtle bells and resonant atmospheric textures gradually build a soundscape positioned somewhere between archaeology, memory and the heavens.
At its centre is a recurring melodic idea that functions as the musical signature of the soundtrack, a motif representing continuity across time.
The music begins with the feeling of entering a landscape older than written history and gradually expands toward monumental stone, human gathering, symbolic thought and the sky above them.
It is not an attempt to recreate prehistoric music. Instead, it imagines the threshold between prehistory and history, and the questions human beings may have carried beneath the stars before they could write them down.
Listen on YouTube: https://youtu.be/lt6xooyFBoc?si=DrvxDLLM7FxFhz0V
Before history was written, humanity was already looking up.
02 — MESOPOTAMIAN SKY
Inspired by Rod Chang
Duration: 02:45
Mesopotamian Sky was inspired by Rod Chang’s presentation:
“Mythological Sky: Stargazing Under the Ancient Mesopotamian Sky.”
The piece imagines a world before telescopes, mechanical clocks and modern calendars, when the movements of the Sun, Moon and stars were observed directly and woven into memory, orientation, season and story.
Its musical language is intentionally gentle, spacious and dreamlike.
Lyre-like plucked strings, airy flute textures, soft percussion and luminous harmonic layers create the feeling of watching the night sky slowly reveal itself.
Rod’s session explores celestial figures including Andromeda, Perseus, Pegasus and Cetus, alongside the Pleiades and the Milky Way, approached not simply as astronomical diagrams, but as part of the human imagination beneath the living sky.
Among the more ceremonial and dramatic pieces of the album, Mesopotamian Sky becomes a quieter moment of wonder.
Listen on YouTube: https://youtu.be/KFn68Gv2F6c?si=GU5b9aBeOiYgB-3p
Before the sky became a chart, it was a story.
03 — MOON OVER HARRAN
Inspired by Tania Daniels
Duration: 03:40
Tania Daniels’ lecture,
“Sabean Harran and the Moon God Sîn: A Journey Through Time and Astrology,”
became the inspiration for Moon Over Harran.
The composition imagines Harran after nightfall: an ancient landscape beneath the Moon, carrying memories of Sîn, celestial religion, sacred knowledge and the traditions historically associated with the Sabians of Harran.
Its musical language draws from the wider sound world of Anatolia, Türkiye and Mesopotamia.
Reed-flute textures, plucked strings, frame drums, deep ceremonial percussion, drones and subtle metallic accents create a sound that moves between contemplation, ritual and celestial grandeur.
The piece does not attempt to reproduce historical Harranian music.
Instead, it treats Harran as a place where religion, astrology, astronomy, symbolism and changing interpretations of the heavens meet.
Listen on YouTube: https://youtu.be/ltKG-Xa4TxY?si=s5-QF7hgA-heCJWl
One landscape. Thousands of years. The same Moon above Harran.
04 — AXIS MUNDI
Inspired by Liz Hathway
Duration: 03:40
Axis Mundi was inspired by Liz Hathway’s lecture:
“Magic, Sacred Landscape and the Living Sky.”
The piece imagines Göbekli Tepe not simply as an archaeological site, but as a meeting point between earth, sky, image, ritual and human consciousness.
Its title refers to the ancient concept of the axis mundi, the symbolic world axis connecting different levels of existence, together with the related idea of the omphalos, or sacred centre.
Cyclical rhythms, plucked strings, organic percussion, breathy reed textures, ritual bells and atmospheric drones create a musical space somewhere between stillness and pulse.
Here, landscape and sky are not passive backgrounds.
They become active participants in meaning.
Listen on YouTube: https://youtu.be/IIjcIjT3OyY?si=ZQHNq6bYaFLdg3rz
Where the earth becomes sacred, and the sky becomes alive.
05 — THE SACRED PULSE
Inspired by Kenan Yasin
Duration: 02:30
My own lecture for IAC III is titled:
“From the Gods of the Sky to the Signs of Heaven: Abraham, Astro-Theology and the Sacred Landscape of Urfa.”
Two pieces emerged from its themes.
The first is The Sacred Pulse.
The composition approaches Urfa as a landscape of religious transformation, a place where ancient celestial traditions, sacred narratives and changing ideas about the relationship between humanity and the heavens intersect.
At the centre of the piece is a persistent rhythmic pulse: ceremonial, restless and gradually expanding. It reflects the transformation explored in the lecture, from celestial powers understood as divine beings toward a world in which the heavens could instead be interpreted as signs.
Deep ceremonial percussion, driving low strings, brass, plucked-string textures, distant bells and wordless male choir give the piece a more forceful and monumental character than much of the album.
Listen on YouTube: https://youtu.be/7Gvi47gmCDo?si=M5NXuKePkgsEOuOP
Before the heavens became signs, they were powers. Somewhere between the two, the sacred pulse continues.
06 — THE LUMINOUS FALL
Inspired by Kenan Yasin
Duration: 04:00
The second composition connected with my lecture is The Luminous Fall. Where The Sacred Pulse concentrates on rhythm and confrontation, The Luminous Fall develops a longer symbolic narrative.
The composition follows the Abrahamic memory of Urfa through confrontation, fire, the catapult, the fall and transformation. The “fall” in the title is not only physical. It becomes a threshold between two worlds of meaning: danger and revelation, destruction and protection, celestial powers and a new interpretation of the heavens as signs.
Powerful ceremonial drums, low strings, brass, rhythmic ostinatos, plucked textures, distant bells and wordless male choir carry the music through successive waves of tension and release.
It became one of the soundtrack’s most dramatic pieces.
Listen on YouTube: https://youtu.be/JB8f8N6w-IY?si=cKwS6xGClbXHGRuo
Thrown toward destruction, falling toward transformation.
07 — MOONLIGHT OVER THE FIELDS
Inspired by Mihrap Sarıçiçek
Duration: 02:18
After the intensity of the previous pieces, the album opens into a warmer landscape.
Moonlight Over the Fields was inspired by Mihrap Sarıçiçek’s lecture:
“The Horn in the Sky, the Oasis on Earth: The Astro-Mythology of the Fertile Crescent.”
The composition imagines the Fertile Crescent not only as a cradle of agriculture and settlement, but as a symbolic landscape shaped by the Moon, the bull, the horn, fertility and myth.
Flowing frame drums, hand percussion, bright plucked strings, breathy flute-like textures and warm cinematic harmonies give the piece a more radiant and life-giving quality.
Its themes reflect the crescent, the bull and horn, the Moon god Sîn, Mesopotamian mythology and the intertwining of celestial imagery with agriculture, geography and sacred memory.
Listen on YouTube: https://youtu.be/3_9r3NINj_8?si=zOInGWnEoMx__inB
Where the crescent rises, the fields begin to speak.
08 — PLANETARY MANDALA
Inspired by Meltem Demir
Duration: 03:45
Meltem Demir’s experiential workshop,
“From Cosmic Order to Earthly Form: Astrological Manifestation Mandala Workshop,”
inspired Planetary Mandala. The piece translates the idea of planetary order into sound.
At its centre is the traditional Chaldean planetary sequence; Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury and Moon, imagined as a series of musical layers gradually forming a larger whole. Like a mandala taking shape, the composition grows through repetition, balance, symmetry and accumulation.
Rhythmic pulses, plucked strings, soft percussion, bells, airy flute textures and expanding harmonic layers create the sensation of order becoming form. The piece also developed subtle East Asian-inspired colours, adding a contemplative quality that complements the geometric and meditative nature of the workshop.
Listen on YouTube: https://youtu.be/DGxJR3P_kUY?si=YdT-Wo4AumPdMCOV
Seven planets. Seven layers. One form emerging from the cosmos.
09 — UNDER THE SAME SKY
Closing Theme
Duration: 03:00
Every journey needed a final return. Under the Same Sky brings the soundtrack back to the musical world introduced in Dawn of Civilization, but from a different emotional perspective.
What began as discovery becomes reflection.
Across Göbeklitepe, Karahantepe, Harran and the landscapes of Southeastern Türkiye, generations separated by thousands of years lived beneath the same sky. They observed it. They imagined it. They feared it. They worshipped beneath it. They measured it. And they filled it with meaning.
The melodic motif first introduced in the opening theme returns in warmer form, surrounded by lyre-like plucked strings, airy flute, soft frame drums, delicate bells, warm strings and spacious celestial textures. Rather than ending with spectacle, the album closes with perspective. Landscapes change. Cultures change. Symbols change. But the human impulse to look upward remains.
Listen on YouTube: https://youtu.be/3GM85GqecHk?si=APIBJSmVwsDpPuzG
We arrived beneath the stars. We leave beneath the same sky.
ONE CONFERENCE, ONE LANDSCAPE, ONE MUSICAL JOURNEY
The soundtrack was never intended to sit beside IAC III simply as decoration. It became another way of approaching the same questions. A lecture can explain an idea. A landscape can make that idea tangible. Music can sometimes reach the space between the two.
That is what I wanted this collection to do.
Across its nine tracks, the album moves from prehistory to mythology, from celestial observation to religion, from sacred geography to agriculture, from planetary order to human memory.
Different pieces carry different moods, but they remain connected by a shared musical vocabulary and by the same central image:
Human beings, separated by centuries and civilizations, looking upward.
LISTEN TO THE COMPLETE IAC III ORIGINAL CONFERENCE SOUNDTRACK
Full Album on YouTube: https://youtu.be/fn6ESC03G_E?si=oQfG2MZHb4khCesx
The complete collection is also available as individual tracks, allowing each composition to be experienced alongside the lecture or workshop that inspired it.
JOIN US IN URFA
IAC III – Astrology at the Dawn of Civilization
15–18 October 2026
Gaziantep • Şanlıurfa • Göbeklitepe • Karahantepe • Harran
IAC III invites us to encounter astrology not only through charts and texts, but through place, archaeology, mythology, cultural memory and the sky itself.
Together, we will explore a region where some of humanity’s earliest monumental spaces emerged and where later traditions of religion, astronomy, astrology and celestial symbolism continued to develop across thousands of years.
For the complete programme, speakers, travel details and registration:
SOUNDTRACK CREDITS
Music concept, creative direction & curation: Kenan Yasin
AI-assisted composition & production: Suno
Produced for: Istanbul Astrology Conferences / IAC III – URFA 2026
The compositions were developed specifically for the conceptual and musical identity of IAC III – Astrology at the Dawn of Civilization.
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