In Greek mythology, Pandora’s released troubles were originally held in a jar.
The earliest surviving literary versions describe the container with the ancient Greek word pithos, meaning a large storage jar or clay vessel. Such jars were used in the Greek world for grain, wine, oil, and other goods. The story says Pandora opened the vessel, allowing evils or troubles to escape into the world, while one remaining thing stayed inside.
The familiar phrase “Pandora’s box” comes from a later translation tradition rather than the wording of the earliest Greek account. In the sixteenth century, the Latin scholar Erasmus rendered the Greek vessel as a small box or container, helping establish the expression used in modern languages.
The jar detail is therefore important in mythology and in classical translation history. “Box” is the conventional modern phrase, but “jar” is the more historically precise answer for Hesiod’s original story.