Pandora is the first woman created by the gods in Hesiod’s myth of Pandora.
Hesiod presents her story in two eighth-century BCE Greek poems, the Theogony and Works and Days. Zeus orders the gods to create Pandora after Prometheus steals fire for humanity. Each god contributes something to her appearance or abilities, making her a divinely fashioned figure rather than an ordinary human birth.
Her name is commonly interpreted as meaning “all-gifted” or “all-giving,” because the gods provide her with different gifts. Hesiod’s account is strongly shaped by ancient Greek ideas about divine punishment, gender, work, and human suffering.
The familiar expression “Pandora’s box” is slightly different from Hesiod’s wording. The earliest Greek version describes a large storage jar, or pithos, which Pandora opens. The box became the standard image through later translation and retelling. Pandora is also distinct from Eve, whose story belongs to Genesis and is not the source of the Greek myth.