In Greek mythology, Pandora opened a jar, not a box.
Hesiod’s Works and Days, the earliest surviving account of the story, uses the ancient Greek word pithos. A pithos was a large storage jar, commonly used for goods such as grain, oil, or wine. Later retellings and translations turned this vessel into a box, helping create the familiar expression “Pandora’s box.”
The change is often linked to Renaissance translation history. The humanist Desiderius Erasmus used the Latin word pyxis, meaning a small box or casket, in a 1508 edition of Hesiod. That wording influenced later European versions.
The jar-and-box distinction matters because the original myth is about a household storage vessel. Pandora releases destructive forces from it, while one beneficial thing remains inside or escapes depending on the interpretation.