In Pandora’s creation myth, Hephaestus used clay to form her. Hesiod describes Zeus ordering the divine craftsman to shape a woman’s likeness from earth, an image often rendered in English as clay.
This detail links Pandora with a wider ancient Mediterranean pattern in which humans are fashioned from earth by a god or supernatural maker. Hephaestus’s craftsmanship gives the story an artificial-creation theme: Pandora is made, adorned, and instructed by divine beings before entering the human world.
The myth does not describe Hephaestus sculpting a literal modern statue that remains motionless. Pandora becomes a living woman after the gods give her gifts and powers. Some translations use “earth” rather than “clay,” but “clay” is the standard concise answer for the material in popular retellings. Bronze, ivory, and marble are associated with ancient art, not with this specific creation episode.