The Greek word for the jar in Pandora’s story is pithos.
A pithos was a large storage jar used in ancient Greece for commodities such as grain, wine, and oil. Hesiod’s original Greek wording describes Pandora’s container as a pithos, not specifically as a small box. The familiar English expression “Pandora’s box” developed later through translation and literary tradition.
The distinction matters because the container is central to how the myth changed over time. Erasmus helped popularize the Latin phrase “pyxis Pandorae,” meaning Pandora’s box, and later European retellings generally followed that wording. Modern illustrations therefore often show a decorated box rather than a large earthenware jar.
The myth’s best-known ancient literary versions appear in Hesiod’s Works and Days and Theogony. In the story, the container holds evils that spread among humanity when it is opened, while hope remains inside.