The vessel in Hesiod’s Pandora myth was a jar, not a box.
Hesiod uses the Greek word pithos, which referred to a large storage jar. Such jars were used in the ancient Greek world for commodities including grain, oil, and wine. In the myth, Pandora opened this vessel and released troubles into the world, while one thing remained inside after she closed it again.
The familiar expression “Pandora’s box” arose much later. In the sixteenth century, the humanist Erasmus translated the Greek vessel term into Latin as pyxis, meaning a small box or container. That translation helped establish the wording used in modern European languages.
The jar-versus-box distinction is important because it shows how a translation shaped a famous cultural image. Paintings, books, films, and everyday speech usually show a hinged box, even though the earliest surviving literary account describes a jar. “Pandora’s jar” is therefore closer to Hesiod’s original wording.