In Greek mythology, Pandora was the first woman to open a jar.
Hesiod’s Works and Days describes Pandora opening a large storage vessel that Zeus had sent with her. Once opened, the vessel released sufferings and troubles into the human world. The Greek word pithos means a large earthenware storage jar, not a small modern box.
The familiar phrase “Pandora’s box” comes from a later translation tradition. The Latin writer Erasmus helped popularize the box wording when he rendered the Greek vessel as a box in the Renaissance. That translation became standard in European languages and gave the myth its enduring English name.
The story is often simplified as an account of curiosity, but Hesiod’s version is also about divine punishment, human suffering, and the consequences of Zeus’s conflict with Prometheus. The jar’s opening is the key action that allows the evils to escape.