In Greek mythology, Pandora opened a jar, not a box.
The earliest surviving accounts, written by the Greek poet Hesiod, describe a large storage jar called a pithos. Pandora opened it, releasing troubles into the world, while one thing remained inside: hope. The word pithos referred to a substantial earthenware vessel used for storing goods such as grain or oil.
The familiar phrase “Pandora’s box” arose much later through translation history. In the sixteenth century, the humanist Erasmus translated the Greek vessel into Latin as pyxis, meaning a small box or container. That wording helped establish the English expression, even though the older Greek story used a jar.
The distinction matters because the container’s identity is one of the best-known examples of how translation can reshape a myth. The myth’s central event is still Pandora’s opening of the vessel and the escape of worldly evils.