In Greek mythology, Pandora releases evils when she opens the forbidden jar. Hesiod’s Works and Days says Zeus arranged for Pandora to receive the jar as part of humanity’s punishment after Prometheus stole fire for humans.
The Greek text describes the container as a pithos, a large storage jar, rather than a box. When Pandora opens it, harmful things escape and spread among humanity. The surviving account does not provide a modern inventory of every evil; later retellings commonly describe sickness, toil, suffering, and other human troubles.
Hope remains inside after the jar is closed, depending on how the passage is interpreted and translated. Some readers understand this as a blessing preserved for humans, while others debate whether hope is being kept away. The famous phrase “Pandora’s box” arose from later transmission and translation, not from Hesiod’s original wording.
The myth is therefore about the arrival of suffering in the human world, not about a literal historical container discovered by archaeologists.