In Hesiod’s Pandora myth, Zeus ordered Hephaestus to make Pandora from earth and water.
Hephaestus, the divine smith, shaped the first woman at Zeus’s command. Hesiod’s Works and Days describes the gods contributing qualities or gifts to her, while the name Pandora is associated with the gifts given by the gods.
This creation follows Prometheus’s theft of fire for humans. Zeus’s plan was not simply to make a new person, but to send humanity a beautiful and deceptive punishment. Pandora was then presented to Epimetheus, who ignored Prometheus’s warning against accepting gifts from Zeus.
Later retellings often say that Pandora was made from clay, a familiar shorthand for earth and water. Hesiod’s wording is more specific: the materials are earth and water, and Hephaestus is the craftsman who forms her. The jar is a separate object in the story, not the substance from which Pandora is made.