In Hesiod’s Pandora story, the container she opened was a pithos, a large Greek storage jar.
Works and Days uses the Greek word pithos for the vessel that held the evils released into the world. A pithos was a substantial earthenware container used in the ancient Greek world for storing commodities such as grain, oil, or wine. It could be large enough to stand on the floor rather than function like a small portable box.
The familiar expression “Pandora’s box” developed through later translation and retelling. Erasmus’s Latin rendering used the word pyxis, meaning a box or small container, helping establish the wording that became standard in European languages.
The distinction matters because the original myth is about a jar, not a hinged box. Other Greek vessels had different shapes and uses: an amphora commonly had two handles, a krater was used for mixing wine, and a lekythos was a narrow oil vessel.