Safe area to drop an E in ancient city (5)
I believe the answer is:
petra
'ancient city' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'safe area to drop an e' is the wordplay.
'safe' becomes 'petr' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'area' becomes 'ne'.
'to drop' indicates named letters should be taken away.
'an'+'e'='ane'
'ane' with 'ne' taken away is 'a'.
'petr'+'a'='PETRA'
'in' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for petra that I've seen before include "Rock-hewn city of Jordan" , "Burgon's rose-red city" , "Long-lost city of Jordan rediscovered in 1812" , "Old city in Jordan" , "Historic city in Jordan" .)