In Hesiod’s Works and Days, the troubles released by Pandora were held in a jar. The Greek word is pithos, a large storage vessel commonly used for grain, oil, or wine.
Hesiod does not describe a small wooden box. The familiar phrase “Pandora’s box” developed later, especially through the Latin phrase pyxis, which means a box or container. During the Renaissance, translators and artists helped establish the box as the standard image in European culture.
The pithos matters because it gives the story a domestic and agricultural setting. A large storage jar would have been a recognizable household object in the ancient Greek world. Hesiod says that Pandora lifted the lid, allowing the evils inside to spread among humans, while hope remained within. Modern retellings often show a hinged box, but the oldest surviving literary account uses a jar. “Amphora” is another Greek vessel, but it is not the container named in Hesiod’s story.