In Greek mythology, Pandora opened a jar, not a box.
The earliest surviving account appears in Hesiod’s Works and Days, written in ancient Greek. Hesiod uses the word pithos, which means a large storage jar or earthenware container. Such jars were used in the ancient Mediterranean for storing grain, wine, oil, and other goods. The text does not describe a small wooden box of the kind suggested by modern illustrations.
The “box” wording developed later through translation history. In the sixteenth century, the Greek term was translated into Latin as pyxis, a word that can mean a box or container. That choice helped establish the expression “Pandora’s box” in European languages.
The modern phrase therefore preserves the myth’s basic idea while changing its object. Pandora’s jar contained harmful forces that escaped into the world, leaving only hope inside. Ancient Greek art and later retellings often reshape the vessel, but Hesiod’s original description is the key source for the jar detail.