In Greek mythology, Hephaestus shaped Pandora from clay according to Hesiod’s account.
Hesiod presents Pandora as a woman fashioned at Zeus’s command after Prometheus gave fire to humanity. Hephaestus, the divine metalworker and smith, made her form from earth or clay. Other gods then contributed abilities, ornaments, or traits, making Pandora a constructed figure rather than a naturally born human in the story.
This detail comes from Hesiod’s Works and Days, the earliest surviving Greek account that tells the Pandora episode in substantial form. The myth is often simplified in modern retellings, where Pandora is described merely as the first woman. Hesiod’s version instead emphasizes a coordinated divine creation and frames her arrival as part of Zeus’s punishment of humankind. Hephaestus’s role also connects Pandora with the broader Greek tradition in which gods manufacture living forms, armor, and remarkable objects.