Probing dense baryonic matter with strangeness

Strange particles allow to probe the properties of hot and dense baryonic matter. At incident energies close to the production threshold medium effects on the strange hadrons are magnified. Available data on K 0 , + , − K ∗ (892), Φ , Λ , and Σ ∗ (1385) are summarized for the system Al+Al at an incident energy of 1.9 AGeV and compared to statistical model calculations. Results of searches for multi-baryonic strange bound states in the Λ p -channel are presented.