In Hesiod’s original Greek myth, Pandora’s contents were held in a pithos, a large storage jar.
Hesiod’s works do not describe Pandora opening a box in the modern sense. In Works and Days, the Greek word is pithos, which generally means a large earthenware jar used for storing goods such as grain, oil, or wine. The vessel is therefore closer to a household storage container than to a small hinged box.
The familiar phrase “Pandora’s box” arose through a later translation tradition. The Renaissance humanist Erasmus translated the Greek term into Latin as pyxis, meaning a box or small container, helping establish the wording that became standard in European languages.
The jar-versus-box distinction does not change the myth’s central event: after Pandora opens the vessel, troubles escape into the human world, while hope remains inside or is otherwise associated with the closing of the container. The original term is an important example of how translation can reshape a famous myth.