Samuli Simelius is a grant-funded researcher specializing in Roman urbanism and domestic space. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Helsinki, where he studied the ancient city of Pompeii and explored how peristyle gardens reflected socioeconomic status. This research formed the basis of his book Pompeian Peristyle Gardens (Routledge, 2022). Following his doctoral studies, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the ERC-funded project “Law, Governance and Space: Questioning the Foundations of the Republican Tradition,” which examined the role of spatial practices in administration and republicanism in the Roman world and its later reception. He concurrently served as a coordinator and lecturer in the Ancient Cultures study module at the University of Helsinki.

At SCAS, Simelius is conducting a project on urban inequality in the Roman world. This project focuses on disparities in health and wealth, examined through archaeological evidence from the Roman cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum, Ostia, Delos, Priene, Timgad, and Rome. A central aim of the project is the development of methodologies for studying historical inequalities. Simelius has already published two notable articles in this area: “Unequal Housing in Pompeii: Using House Size to Measure Inequality” (World Archaeology, 2022) and “Networks of Inequality: Access to Water in Roman Pompeii” (Journal of Computer Applications in Archaeology, 2024). This multi-year project is additionally supported by the Kone Foundation and the Finnish Institute in Rome.

This information is accurate as of the academic year 2025-26.