In the Pandora myth, Hephaestus created Pandora as part of Zeus’s punishment for Prometheus’s theft.
According to Hesiod, Zeus commanded Hephaestus, the divine smith and craftsman, to form Pandora from earth. Hephaestus was especially suited to the task because Greek mythology associates him with metalworking, sculpture, fire, and the creation of remarkable objects. The gods then supplied Pandora with different qualities and adornments.
This creation followed Prometheus’s theft of fire for humanity. Zeus had already punished Prometheus by chaining him to a mountain, where an eagle repeatedly ate his liver. Pandora’s arrival added a different form of punishment: she became the source through which troubles entered human life.
Later retellings sometimes assign Pandora’s creation to several gods collectively, because many deities contribute gifts to her. However, the specific maker who shapes her from earth in Hesiod’s account is Hephaestus. The story thus links divine craftsmanship with both beauty and catastrophe.