In Greek mythology, Pandora opened a storage jar, although later retellings commonly call it a box.
Hesiod’s Greek word was pithos, meaning a large jar or storage container. In the story, Zeus had the container given to Pandora, and opening it released the troubles that thereafter affected humanity. The familiar image of a small box comes from a later translation tradition rather than Hesiod’s original description.
The change from jar to box is often linked to the Latin translation of Erasmus, who used the word pyxis, meaning a box or small container. English and other European retellings then popularized the phrase “Pandora’s box.” The myth therefore combines an ancient Greek vessel with a later Western visual tradition.
The story is not the same as a universal account of how evil began in every Greek source. Hesiod presents Pandora’s arrival as part of Zeus’s punishment of humanity after Prometheus’s theft of fire.