Hesiod first used the name “Pandora” for the woman in the jar myth in surviving Greek literature.
Hesiod’s Works and Days and Theogony contain the earliest surviving literary accounts of Pandora’s creation and arrival among humans. The Works and Days version is especially important because it connects Pandora with the sealed or opened storage jar and the release of troubles.
Homer does not provide the canonical Pandora narrative in the surviving Homeric epics. Pindar and Sophocles belong to later periods and are not the source of the earliest surviving literary version. Hesiod’s poems therefore anchor the myth’s oldest extant written form.
This does not prove that Hesiod invented every element from nothing; myths circulated orally before being written down. It does establish that Hesiod is the earliest surviving literary author to present this named figure and story.