Gravestone

A headstone you can write on

Marking a grave is the stated purpose of the Gravestone in ARK: Survival Evolved, whose in-game text reads: "A simple unadorned stone headstone to mark a grave or commemorate a loved one." It also takes a short line of text in the same way a Wooden Sign does, and it accepts dye. The ARK Wiki suggests it as an alternative sign and points out that it is a different item from the Stolen Headstone.

Unlocking and crafting

The engram becomes available at level 16 and costs 8 engram points. One gravestone takes 70 Stone and 8 Cementing Paste, and Achatina Paste can replace the Cementing Paste. A craft lasts 5 seconds and gives 0.73 XP.

How sturdy it is

As a stone structure it takes damage from a limited set of sources. The wiki's list includes metal weapons at 5%, explosives at 150%, the Ballista Turret at 40%, the Tek Sword, the Cannon, and creatures such as the Arthropluera, Chalicotherium, Deathworm, Magmasaur, Managarmr and Roll Rat. Alpha, Astral, Corrupted and Enraged creatures can break it too, as can Titans, the Titanosaur, bosses at 10%, and the DodoRex and Dodo Wyvern, both at 300%.

The per-area limit

Since patch 273.882, official servers allow at most 150 gravestones per area. The wiki notes that this cap came in quietly, with no mention in any patch note, and that it is not known what counts as an "area".

Weight and loot

A gravestone weighs 4 and they stack to 100, so a full stack comes to 400. Our records list it on 12 maps, The Island, Scorched Earth, Aberration and Fjordur among them, and 44 crate types can contain it, such as the Genesis Blue and Genesis Cyan crates of Genesis Part 2. The wiki gives 216.0 as the version that added it.