Hesiod is credited with telling the earliest surviving story of Pandora.
The story appears in two works attributed to Hesiod: the Theogony and Works and Days, composed in ancient Greece around the late eighth or early seventh century BCE. In these poems, Pandora is created as part of Zeus's punishment of humanity after Prometheus steals fire.
Hesiod does not describe a literal box in the modern sense. His account refers to a large storage jar, called a pithos in Greek. Later retellings and translations transformed the jar into a box, helping create the familiar expression "Pandora's box."
Hesiod's account also differs from many modern versions. Pandora is not simply a curious woman who opens a container; she is a divinely fashioned figure whose arrival brings suffering into the human world. The surviving poems are therefore essential evidence for distinguishing the ancient myth from later adaptations.