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Sculpted in haste, omitting head and capital (6)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

athens

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'capital' is the definition.
(capital of Greece)

'sculpted in haste omitting head and' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'and' could be 'n' (common abbreviation for 'and') and 'n' is present in the answer.
an anagram of 'haste' is 'athes' which is within the remaining letters.
No letters remain.
This may be the basis of clue (or it may be nonsense).

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for athens that I've seen before include "Two thousand and four Olympics city" , "Capital of Greece" , "Hasten to European city" , "Hasten to Greece" , "Hasten (anag) -- capital city" .)

I've seen this clue in the Sydney Morning Herald.
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