In Hesiod’s Works and Days, the large storage jar associated with Pandora is called a pithos.
A pithos was a substantial Greek container used for storing materials such as grain, wine, or oil. Hesiod’s poem does not call Pandora’s container a box. The later phrase “Pandora’s box” arose after the Greek term was translated into Latin as pyxis, a word associated with a small box or container. That translation helped shape the expression now familiar in many languages.
The pithos matters because it places the myth in an everyday storage setting rather than in a modern gift box. Ancient Greek audiences would have recognized such jars as practical household objects, sometimes large enough to stand upright.
The word is often confused with amphora, another Greek vessel with handles and a narrower shape. A pithos is generally a large storage jar, and it is the specific term connected with Pandora in Hesiod’s narrative.