The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 9 letter word PARTHENON
I've seen this crossword clue in The Guardian
P
A
R
T
H
E
N
O
N
More clues leading to the result PARTHENON
- Catch up with female working in temple
- Pagan god astride unusual throne in temple
- Leave layer covering ancient temple
- Dolly perhaps bringing female inside temple
- Leave Scottish woman running temple
- Perhaps chicken wing and leg found on top of Capital Hill
- Ruined temple right in the way, nobody turns up
- Correspondence at that time over ancient temple
- Ruined temple right in way, nobody turns up
- ‘Standard’ therefore will be touching on ruin of Athens
Buddy explains!
The straight part
We know that "ancient temple" is the straight/definition part of the clue. The straight part is often a synonym or definition, in this case ancient temple = parthenon.The cryptic/wordplay part
In cryptic crossword there's often an wordplay/cryptic part as well.This part involves a more complex hint, such as an anagram, homophone, hidden word, etc.
Sadly, We don't have an explanation for this specific crossword clue yet.