In Hesiod’s Works and Days, Pandora opens a pithos, a large storage jar later translated as a “box.”
The Greek word pithos described a substantial container used to store commodities such as grain, oil, or wine. Hesiod’s account does not use the modern English expression “Pandora’s box”; it describes a jar or storage vessel. The familiar “box” wording developed through later translation and retelling.
This distinction matters because the vessel is part of the myth’s ancient agricultural setting. A pithos was far larger and more practical than a small jewelry box. Ancient Greek households and communities used such containers for long-term storage.
The story is told in Hesiod’s Works and Days, where opening the vessel releases the troubles that affect humanity. The common phrase remains “Pandora’s box,” but “pithos” is the more precise term for the object in the earliest surviving literary version.