Broken phial outside a site that’s ancient in city (12)
I believe the answer is:
philadelphia
'ancient in city' is the definition.
'philadelphia' can be an answer for 'city' (Philadelphia is an example). I am not sure about the 'ancient in' bit.
'broken phial outside a site' is the wordplay.
'broken' indicates anagramming the letters.
'outside' indicates putting letters inside.
'site' becomes 'delphi' (I have seen 'classical site' mean 'delphi' so perhaps 'site' could also mean 'delphi').
'phial' is an anagram of 'phila'.
'a'+'delphi'='adelphi'
'phila' going around 'adelphi' is 'PHILADELPHIA'.
'that's' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for philadelphia that I've seen before include "US Quaker city, former capital" , "US city on the Delaware river" , "US federal capital, 1790-1800" , "Pennsylvania city" , "City where the American Declaration of Independence was signed" .)