Shame about ancient city showing lack of contamination (6)
I believe the answer is:
purity
'lack of contamination' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both states of affairs as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps there's an association between them I don't understand?
'shame about ancient city' is the wordplay.
'shame' becomes 'pity' (synonyms).
'about' indicates putting letters inside.
'ancient city' becomes 'ur' (ancient Sumerian city state).
'pity' placed around 'ur' is 'PURITY'.
'showing' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for purity that I've seen before include "Sinlessness" , "Innocence" , "clean state" , "Cleanness" , "Faultlessness" .)