A pithos held the world's troubles in Pandora's original Greek myth.
A pithos was a large storage jar used in the ancient Greek world, especially for commodities such as grain, oil, or wine. Hesiod's Works and Days calls Pandora's container a pithos, not a small hinged box. The vessel therefore belongs to the practical world of ancient storage rather than to a specially magical object category.
The phrase “Pandora's box” became standard through later transmission and translation. Erasmus's sixteenth-century Latin version is often associated with the shift from jar to box, although the history of the wording involves broader interpretive changes. The exact shape of a pithos could vary, but it was generally much larger than the compact box shown in many modern illustrations. Remembering the pithos helps distinguish Hesiod's text from later visual tradition.