  This paper presents deep spectra of 14 planetary nebulae (PNs) at a variety
of angular distances from the center of the flattened elliptical galaxy NGC
4697. Both near the center and among the most outlying PNs we have found
several examples of very strong [O III] 5007, about 20 times brighter than
Hbeta. This, together with strong [Ne III] lines, implies a lower limit for O
and Ne abundances near solar at the center and also at more than two effective
radii from the center of NGC 4697. Thus we have found, for the first time from
individual stars, direct evidence of the existence of a metal-rich population
in elliptical galaxies, confirming metallicities derived from absorption-line
indices and extending the information to angular distances where the stellar
surface brightness is too low for absorption-line studies. A comparison with
abundances obtained closer to the center of NGC 4697 from integrated
absorption-line spectra indicates that the metallicity gradient, which is quite
steep within one effective radius, becomes much less pronounced beyond one
effective radius. The only alternative to this interpretation would be the
presence of a very metal-poor PN population with [Z/H] below -1, which we
cannot rule out but would require an extremely bimodal metallicity distribution
with almost no intermediate metallicities.
