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We present ten metallicity measurements for quasar absorbers near $z=1.2$that were selected for having unusually significant ZnII absorption in theirSDSS spectra. Follow-up UV space spectroscopy of the Ly$\alpha$ region showsthat all ten have damped Ly$\alpha$ (DLA) absorption, corresponding to neutralhydrogen column densities in the range $2.4\times 10^{20}$ $\le$ N(HI) $\le$$2.5\times 10^{21}$ atoms cm$^{-2}$, and indicating that the gas is veryoptically thick and essentially neutral. The sample is a very small subset ofsystems compiled by searching the University of Pittsburgh catalog of $\approx30,000$ intervening MgII absorption line systems in SDSS quasar spectra up toDR7. We started by isolating $\approx 3,000$ that had strong MgII absorption inthe redshift interval $1.0 < z < 1.5$ in brighter background quasars. Of these,36 exhibited significant absorption near ZnII. Space UV spectroscopy was thenobtained for nine of these (25% of the total), and a tenth system in a fainterquasar was found in the HST archives. The result is a representative sample ofthe highest Zn$^+$ columns of gas within the DLA population. TheseZnII-selected systems define the upper envelope of DLA metallicities near$z=1.2$. They show a tight anti-correlation between N(HI) and [Zn/H], with thehigher metallicity systems clearly exhibiting more depletion based on [Cr/Zn]values. The various metal-line measurements (Zn, Cr, Si, Fe, Mn) indicateevolved neutral gas with $-0.9 \le$ [Zn/H] $\le +0.4$.

Neutral-Gas-Phase Metal Abundances in ZnII-Selected Quasar Absorption Line Systems near Redshift $z=1.2$