In Hesiod’s Theogony, Pandora’s creation begins with earth. Zeus instructs Hephaestus to make a woman’s likeness from earth as part of the punishment imposed on humanity after Prometheus’s theft of fire.
The detail connects Pandora with a broader Greek mythic pattern in which gods shape living beings from earthly material. Hephaestus’s craftsmanship then becomes the first stage of a larger divine construction project: other gods add skills, beauty, clothing, ornaments, and speech.
This episode is related to, but not identical with, the fuller account in Hesiod’s Works and Days. The two poems give overlapping versions of Pandora’s story, and later retellings often combine them. The substance is not bronze or sea foam: bronze is associated with other Greek mythic figures and ages, while sea foam is linked to Aphrodite’s birth in later mythological tradition.