In Greek mythology, pithos is the Greek word for the large storage jar that Pandora opens.
Hesiod’s Works and Days uses pithos for the container in Pandora’s story. A pithos was a large ancient Greek vessel used to store commodities such as grain, wine, or oil. It was generally much bigger than the small household box imagined by many modern illustrations.
The familiar phrase “Pandora’s box” arose later through a translation tradition. The Latin humanist Erasmus rendered the Greek vessel with a Latin term associated with a box or container, helping establish the wording that became standard in European languages.
This distinction matters because the earliest written version does not describe Pandora opening a small hinged box. Modern usage is so firmly established that “Pandora’s box” remains the normal expression, even though “Pandora’s jar” is closer to Hesiod’s Greek.