Spatial analysis on the basis of material culture has always been one of the major topics in archaeological research. Designating Place analyses the urban space of Roman Ostia and Pompeii in different ways, namely via geophysical analysis, spatial analysis, iconographic analysis and epigraphic analysis. This book honors the work of Hanna Stöger, the Leiden scholar who died in 2018. Hanna’s work in Ostia was not finished and this book contains contributions from people who inspired her, people she worked with, people she inspired and people who presented on sessions she organized. The book presents new data on Ostia obtained by techniques such as Space Syntax, high-resolution, shallow seismic reflection survey, the analysis of operational-sequences, linguistic landscape studies and collective memory studies, by scholars from the Netherlands, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, Norway, the UK, and the USA. As a bonus a selection of these papers form a hidden book on Roman bathing and water management.

Hans Kamermans is associate professor at the Faculty of Archaeology at Leiden University. His research is in the field of computer applications in archaeology, in particular predictive modelling. He was involved in fieldwork in the Netherlands, England, France, Germany and Italy (the Agro Pontino survey and Ostia).

L. Bouke van der Meer is associate professor in Classical Archaeology at Leiden University. He has published books and articles on Etruscan archaeology and language. He also did research in Ostia Antica on the use of travertine and on the Domus Fulminata.