In Hesiod’s Works and Days, a jar held the evils released by Pandora. Hesiod uses the Greek word pithos, a large storage jar, rather than describing a small wooden box.
The famous expression “Pandora’s box” arose much later through translation and retelling. The Renaissance humanist Erasmus of Rotterdam translated the Greek vessel into the Latin pyxis, meaning a box or small container. That choice helped establish the wording now familiar in English and many other languages.
A pithos was a practical ancient Mediterranean storage vessel, often large enough for grain, oil, or wine. The contrast between an ordinary household container and the enormous consequences inside it makes the image memorable. Modern illustrations frequently show a hinged box, but that is a later visual convention.
The jar’s contents also vary in wording between sources and translations. Hesiod describes destructive troubles or evils escaping into the world, while the surviving hope remains inside. The “box” label is therefore traditional, but “jar” is the historically precise answer for Hesiod’s version.