  The source of hot gas in elliptical galaxies is thought to be due to stellar
mass loss, with contributions from supernova events and possibly from infall
from a surrounding environment. This picture predicts supersolar values for the
metallicity of the gas toward the inner part of the galaxy, which can be tested
by measuring the gas phase abundances. We use high-quality data for 10 nearby
early-type galaxy from XMM-Newton, featuring both the EPIC and the Reflection
Grating Spectrometer, where the strongest emission lines are detected with
little blending; some Chandra data are also used. We find excellent consistency
in the elemental abundances between the different XMM instruments and good
consistency with Chandra. Differences in abundances with aperture size and
model complexity are examined, but large differences rarely occur. For a
two-temperature thermal model plus a point source contribution, the median Fe
and O abundances are 0.86 and 0.44 of the Solar value, while Si and Mg
abundances are similar to that for Fe. This is similar to stellar abundances
for these galaxies but supernovae were expected to enhance the gas phase
abundances considerably, which is not observed.
