In Hesiod’s Works and Days, Pandora opened a storage jar after arriving among humans.
The original Greek word is pithos, a large earthenware vessel used in the ancient Mediterranean for storing commodities such as grain, oil, or wine. Hesiod’s story therefore describes a substantial container rather than the small box familiar from modern illustrations.
The “box” wording became established through later translation and artistic tradition. The myth’s central action remains the same: Pandora opens the vessel, and harmful conditions escape into the human world while hope remains inside or otherwise becomes associated with the closing of the container, depending on interpretation.
Because translations differ about the fate of hope, the safest fixed detail is the container’s original type: a pithos, best rendered as a large storage jar.