Pandora is the Greek mythological figure traditionally described as the first woman created by the gods.
In Hesiod’s account, Zeus orders Hephaestus to fashion Pandora, and other gods contribute gifts or qualities. Her creation follows Prometheus’s theft of fire and forms part of Zeus’s punishment of humanity. Pandora is then sent to Epimetheus, who accepts her despite his brother’s warning.
The claim that she is the “first woman” belongs to this mythological tradition, not to a historical or scientific account of human origins. It also resembles other ancient stories in which a first woman explains the arrival of suffering, marriage, labor, or mortality.
Pandora’s story later became associated with the phrase “opening Pandora’s box,” meaning an action that releases many unforeseen problems. In the ancient narrative, however, the vessel was a pithos, and the details of her creation are broader than the modern idiom suggests.