In Hesiod’s myth of Pandora, the container was a pithos, a large storage jar.
The Greek word pithos referred to a substantial vessel used for storing commodities such as grain, wine, or oil. It was much larger and more practical than the small hinged box suggested by the modern phrase “Pandora’s box.” Hesiod uses the vessel as a symbolic container for troubles released into the human world.
The “box” wording arose through a translation tradition associated with the sixteenth-century humanist Erasmus. When Erasmus translated the Greek story into Latin, he used pyxis, a word for a small box or casket. That choice helped establish the phrase that became standard in many modern languages.
This is one of the most common mix-ups about the myth. The story’s original object was not necessarily designed as a gift box, and the ancient account does not describe Pandora opening a decorative container. The pithos instead belongs to the everyday storage culture of the ancient Greek world.