In Hesiod’s account of Pandora, which god creates her body from clay?

In Hesiod’s account of Pandora, Hephaestus creates her body from clay.

Hephaestus is the Olympian smith and craftsman, and Zeus orders him to fashion Pandora as part of a punishment directed at humanity. Hesiod’s Works and Days describes the creation of a woman shaped like a mortal, while the other gods contribute gifts and qualities. This makes Pandora a constructed figure rather than a goddess born in the usual mythological way.

The creation episode is followed by the distribution of divine attributes. Athena teaches or dresses her in skilled work, Aphrodite gives her beauty, and Hermes supplies a deceptive character and speech. The precise details vary among ancient and later retellings, but Hephaestus’s role as maker is a stable feature of Hesiod’s account.

The clay-making motif can invite comparisons with other creation myths, yet Pandora is not the Greek equivalent of every culture’s first human. Her creation specifically belongs to the myth explaining the arrival of evils and suffering among humans.