In Hesiod’s account of Pandora, a jar held the released evils.
Hesiod uses the ancient Greek word pithos, which generally means a large storage jar. The object appears in Works and Days, where Pandora opens it and the harmful conditions inside escape into the world. The familiar phrase “Pandora’s box” arose much later through translation and artistic tradition, rather than from Hesiod’s original wording.
A pithos was a substantial ceramic container used in the ancient Mediterranean for storing goods such as grain, oil, or wine. Its size and practical purpose differ from the small hinged box shown in many modern illustrations. The shift from jar to box is one of the best-known changes in the myth’s transmission.
The surviving story does not provide a modern-style inventory of every evil. It says that diseases and countless other hardships spread outward, while one thing remained inside. That broad description allowed later writers and artists to reinterpret the container repeatedly.