In Greek mythology, Pandora’s container was originally a jar, not a box.
The earliest surviving account appears in Hesiod’s Works and Days, written in the seventh or eighth century BCE. Hesiod uses the Greek word pithos, which usually means a large storage jar. Pandora opens this vessel, releasing troubles into the world, while something remains inside.
The familiar phrase “Pandora’s box” arose much later. In the sixteenth century, the humanist Desiderius Erasmus translated pithos into Latin as pyxis, meaning a small box or container. That choice helped establish the wording now used in English and many other languages.
The jar-versus-box distinction matters because a pithos was a substantial household storage vessel, often used for grain or liquids. The myth itself does not describe a modern hinged box. Modern retellings commonly preserve Erasmus’s wording while artistic depictions vary from jars to ornate boxes.