In Greek mythology, Pandora is described as the first woman introduced to humanity. Hesiod presents her creation as a divine act ordered by Zeus after Prometheus’s conflict with the Olympian ruler.
The myth is not a modern account of human origins in a scientific sense. It is an ancient Greek story explaining the arrival of women, marriage, reproduction, and the hardships of mortal life within a particular mythic worldview. Pandora is fashioned and equipped by gods, then brought into the human world through her connection with Epimetheus.
Later retellings often simplify the story into “Pandora opened a box,” but the ancient version is more concerned with the creation of Pandora and the consequences attached to her arrival. The familiar English expression also changes the original container from a jar into a box. Those later changes do not alter Hesiod’s description of Pandora as the first woman.