In Hesiod’s Pandora story, the vessel traditionally translated as the “box” is a pithos.
A pithos was a large storage jar used in ancient Greece for goods such as grain, wine, and olive oil. Hesiod’s Greek wording refers to a pithos, not specifically to a small wooden box. The familiar phrase “Pandora’s box” developed later through translation and retelling.
The distinction matters because the jar reflects ordinary ancient storage technology, while “box” suggests a different container. The vessel is often called a jar in modern translations, which is closer to the original object than the English idiom is.
Hesiod included the story in Works and Days, probably composed in the seventh century BCE. Later writers and artists helped standardize the box image in European culture, making the mistranslation more famous than the original Greek term.