In Hesiod’s Works and Days, what material was used to shape Pandora’s body?

In Hesiod’s Works and Days, Pandora’s body was shaped from earth and water. Zeus commands Hephaestus to make a woman, and the poem compares the process to forming a figure from clay-like material.

The earth-and-water detail connects Pandora with ancient Greek ideas about the making of human bodies and crafted images. Hephaestus, the divine smith, gives the figure physical form, while other gods provide adornments, skills, and attributes.

This account is often simplified into the statement that Pandora was made from clay. “Clay” is a useful summary, but Hesiod’s wording identifies the component materials as earth and water. Fire is important elsewhere in the surrounding myth because Prometheus steals it for humanity, but it is not Pandora’s shaping material.

The story also differs from later retellings. Hesiod does not present Pandora as an ordinary human born through natural reproduction; she is a deliberately constructed divine creation sent into the human world.