Hephaestus fashioned Pandora’s human form from clay in the Greek myth of Pandora’s box.
Hesiod describes Zeus ordering the creation of Pandora after Prometheus gives fire to humanity. Hephaestus, the divine smith, shapes her from earth or clay, giving the story a creation scene that resembles other ancient traditions in which a deity forms humans from earthly material.
Pandora’s creation is a cooperative divine project rather than the work of one god alone. Other gods contribute qualities, skills, or traits. Athena gives her instruction in crafts, while Aphrodite grants beauty; Hermes is associated with deceptive speech and a difficult character in the account.
The familiar phrase “Pandora’s box” can obscure these details because modern retellings focus on the container. In the earliest surviving literary version, however, the creation of Pandora and the distribution of divine gifts are central parts of the narrative.