In Hesiod’s Pandora myth, the large jar she opened is called a pithos. A pithos was a substantial Greek storage container, commonly used for goods such as grain, oil, or wine. Hesiod’s Works and Days uses this jar as the container for troubles released into the human world.
The familiar expression “Pandora’s box” is based on a translation history rather than the exact wording of the earliest Greek account. In the sixteenth century, the humanist Erasmus translated the Greek term pithos into Latin as pyxis, meaning a box or small container. That choice helped establish the box image in later European languages.
The distinction matters because a pithos was normally a large earthenware vessel, sometimes tall enough to stand on the floor. The myth’s original image is therefore a storage jar opened by Pandora, not the hinged box shown in many modern illustrations.