In the original Greek wording associated with Hesiod’s story, Pandora’s container is a pithos. A pithos was a large storage jar used in the ancient Greek world for commodities such as grain, oil, or wine.
The familiar phrase “Pandora’s box” became widespread through later translation history. The Latin scholar Erasmus used the Latin word pyxis, meaning a box or container, when translating the Greek passage into Latin. English then popularized the expression as “Pandora’s box.”
This means the earliest literary version did not necessarily describe a small hinged box. It described a substantial jar or storage vessel, which fits ancient household and agricultural practice.
The modern phrase remains firmly established, so “box” is the conventional answer in everyday English. The more historically precise term for the Greek vessel is pithos, not amphora, krater, or lekythos.