Capacity and regulations against overloading of commercial ships in Byzantine and Islamic maritime practices

The article deals with the methods employed in the Byzantine and Islamic worlds during the seventh to early eleventh centuries to compute the ship capacity at a time when a uniform system did not exist in the Mediterranean world. It describes the responsibility of central and provincial authorities for inspection, construction, and registration of mercantile ships, sheds light on the arrangement of loading, and provides legal solutions to two fundamental questions: How did judicial authorities handle cases of overloading of ships when they were brought to court? Or, what did they advise the contracting parties to do when overloading was discernible while the ship was still berthed or underway?