Gravestones in TV and films tend not to have full dates on them, unlike in real life. Presumably this, like so many other tropes, has to do with movies being shown on TV and released on home video. It also helps prevent Continuity Snarl in cases of intentionally Ambiguous Time Period and/or Vague Age.
As this is a Death Trope, unmarked spoilers abound. Beware.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Advertising
- Tommy McAnairey: Almost averted with Pat McAnairey, his grave shows he was born in 1933 but the year of death is obscured by floral tributes.
Comic Books
- ClanDestine: Justified. Directly after the first arc, in which two relatives died, the two youngest members of the family visit the family cemetery and notice that there are no dates or last names on any of the graves. Their father explains that since the Destines are very long-lived, they don't put anything that could give away their secret on the graves.
- X-Men: The X-Men have an entire cemetery full of dateless graves. However, it was averted when Jean Grey "died" for the first time — her original lifespan was 1956 to 1980 (making her 24 when she died the first time), if you were wondering. Granted, it would be awkward to have a bunch of graves with a series of dates written on them for each successive death and return. Also, given the effects of Comic-Book Time, the dates would start getting really confusing.
Fan Works
- Between Dreams and Memories: Downplayed; Schlatt's grave marks his lifespan to be "SMPLive 199X – DreamSMP 202X", though not the specific year.
Films — Live-Action
- Back to the Future: Averted in the trilogy. George McFly-A's death in the alternate timeline is clearly stated as March 15, 1973 in Part II, and when we see an exact date for Doc Brown's grave in Part III (September 7, 1885), trying to avoid that fate drives the entire movie.
- The Dark Knight Trilogy: Thomas and Martha Wayne's graves are seen in The Dark Knight Rises, and both are undated. Bruce Wayne's grave is seen is the same scene, also without dates; had a date of death been etched, it would have been wrong.
- Marvel Cinematic Universe:
- Captain America: The Winter Soldier: Nick Fury's grave does have dates, they're just obscured by flowers. Averted with Bucky, however, since it's quite hard to redate the Second World War.
- Spider-Man: No Way Home: In a similar vein to the Winter Soldier example, the dates on Aunt May's grave are obscured.
Literature
- Harry Potter: Averted in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. For the first time in his life, Harry visits his parents' graves in Godric's Hollow, and the dates on the gravestones are practically the only place in the whole series where specific years are given. This heightens the emotional impact of the scene considerably. (The only other bit of dating evidence is from Chamber of Secrets, on Nearly-Headless Nick's deathday cake, which, appropriately enough, is tombstone-shaped.) We can date the series from 1991-1998.
- The Dresden Files: In the third novel, Grave Peril, Harry is given a Prematurely Marked Grave and gravestone by one of his (many) vampire nemeses. The gravestone has no date but reads "Harry Dresden—He died doing the right thing". Harry spends Ghost Story as an Only Mostly Dead spirit and uses the grave (still open and dateless, since they Never Found the Body) as a place to hide during the day. As of Cold Days, he is still alive, the grave is still dateless, and there is still a huge hole in the ground because apparently the city officials were REALLY bribed. At least it's one less thing he has to worry about finding the money for when he needs it for real.
- Galaxy of Fear: Most of the gravestones the protagonists of Galaxy of Fear: City of the Dead see are etched in a language they can't read. The one that does have an epigraph in Basic, too, doesn't have a date listed. This may have been because this is a Star Wars Legends novel; at the time of writing, the only dating system to be established was Before/After the Battle of Yavin. Since the book takes place less than a year ABY, no one would have started using it as a dating system yet.
Live-Action TV
- Buck Rogers in the 25th Century: In the Pilot Movie, Buck finds the gravestones of his parents, but doesn't find any dates on them. Dr. Theopolis tells Buck that dates weren't that important as people were dying due to the war in the late 20th century.
- Doctor Who: Amy and Rory's gravestone in the episode "The Angels Take Manhattan" (in which both characters are separately sent back in time by the same Weeping Angel) contains only their names and their ages when they died.
- Highlander: Richie Ryan's tombstome lists how long he lived (22 years) but not the actual dates. Of course, part of this may have to do with Richie being an Immortal and him "dying" in a motorcycle race two years before his final, permanent death.
- Sherlock: Sherlock's grave gives only his name. It's a damn classy gravestone, though.
- Smallville: Chloe Sullivan's grave only has her birth and death year. Might be due to the fact that her birthday is a mild Continuity Snarl.
- Star Trek: The Original Series: The grave marker created by Gary Mitchell in "Where No Man has Gone Before". The use of Stardates helped hide the time line during the run of the show. Years were attributed to events as the Movies and Sequel Series came out.
Video Games
- Left 4 Dead 2: Averted, as graffiti in the safehouses has the birth and death dates of various people, pointing that the game is set in 2009. Banners hanging in the mall further show that the game is set in fall of 2009, at around the time it was released.
- Max Payne 3: Downplayed during the flashbacks to several months prior at the New Jersey cemetery where the DeMarco mob guns for Max. The cemetery also holds the graves of several characters from the first two games, including Nicole Horne, Valerie Winterson, and Vinnie Gognitti; their graves only have the year of their deaths listed which coincide with the year the games they died in were published (2001 for Horne, 2003 for Winterson and Gognitti). Averted with the graves of Max's wife Michelle and infant daughter Rose, which list both their full dates of birth and the day they were murdered which set off Max's whole story (August 22, 1998).
- Metal Gear: The Boss' gravestone in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater reads "192X-1964"
- Spider-Man (PS4): Ben Parker's grave reads "1953-2010". In the epilogue, May's grave reads "1952-2018".
Visual Novels
- Melody: There are no dates on the tombstone of Melody's mother.
Webcomics
- Girl Genius: The lost Heterodyne heir's grave in this page
. Although it's not so much to stop the comic from becoming dated as to make sure we don't know what century this steampunk parallel Europe is set in.
- Though the grave does have a year-of-birth and the number of days he lived. However, Agatha's foot is blocking a clear view of the first two digits of the year, thus making the century of that event unreadable (though based on the shape of the characters we can see, it's likely 1872, which would seem to fit into the Victorian culture underlying the steampunk).
- On the page previous to that one there's another stone, with 'Born 1575' and five Died dates, from 1602 to 1623.
- Kevin & Kell: Corrie visits her mother's grave, and in the only panel showing the dates on the grave, her hand is blocking the last two digits of the year of death, although it is shown that her mother was born in 1968. The strip never makes any explicit reference to what year it is, except for the Y2K arc being set in late 1999.
- Misfile: Angelica's grave is dateless and surname-less as well.
- Nuzlocke Comics: In most comics that show gravestones of fallen party members, instead of "birth date-death date", they'll be engraved with "level captured-level died".
- The Order of the Stick: Elan does not put a date of birth on Therkla's grave, as he does not know when she was born, although the date of death sets the story in the year 1184, according to whatever calendar they're using.
- Which fits with the dates given on the deva's Belkar-evilness-over-time graph.
- In a prequel book we see Eugene's grave...which he's used several times, with different dates each time. We do not, however, know when he died the final, permanent time.
- Sleepless Domain: The markers within the Magical Girl memorial park are all of an identical design, inscribed with only the deceased girl's name and her sigil. In addition to concealing the timeframe of the comic, the lack of dates serves in-universe as a subtle way of brushing aside the reality that none of these girls lived to be eighteen.
Web Animation
- Red vs. Blue: During an April Fool's day episode, Sarge and Simmon's tombstones only show their death year as 2004, the year the video was released, and the birth year as "????".
Web Videos
- All the dog graves scattered around Stampy's Lovely World do not state the birth/taming dates of the dogs or their death dates.
Western Animation
- Bob's Burgers: In "Show Mama from the Grave", Lily Belcher's (Bob's mother) grave doesn't have any dates on it, however, this might be on purpose by the show's creator's part, on the account of the Ambiguous Time Period angle.
- Defenders of the Earth: In the episode "100 Proof Highway" (a Very Special Episode themed around teenaged alcoholism) Mandrake learns that Kshin has innocently started drinking liquor in imitation of his peers. To show Kshin what this could lead to, Mandrake conjures up a vision in which an aged-up Kshin dies in a drink driving accident. The vision ends with a shot of a gravestone bearing the inscription "Kshin RIP", with no dates given.
- Futurama: Fry's nephew, Philip Fry, seems to have a lot of biographical information on his grave, but interestingly enough, no dates.
- Justice League: Justified when Hawkgirl tries to bury Solomon Grundy according to Earth's customs, but only knows that he was "Born on a Monday."
- Teen Titans (2003): While not a proper grave, Terra's statue is the same idea but plays this straight. It's even more notable because her statue in the comics featured one of the few times graves weren't dateless.
- Young Justice (2010): Artemis's grave has a middle name reveal, but not a date.
