In Hesiod’s Pandora story, the container she opened was a jar. The earliest surviving Greek versions do not describe a box. Hesiod calls it a large storage jar, commonly identified with the Greek word pithos, in his poem Works and Days.
The familiar phrase “Pandora’s box” arose much later through translation history. In the sixteenth century, the Dutch humanist Erasmus rendered the Greek container using the Latin word pyxis, meaning a small box or container. That choice helped establish the wording used in European languages.
The change matters because modern retellings often assume the box was part of the original myth. It was not. The jar contained troubles that spread among humans when opened, while hope remained inside. Archaeological pithoi were substantial clay vessels used for storing goods such as grain, oil, or wine, not necessarily small household boxes.