In Pandora’s Box, Hesiod originally described the container as a jar.
The ancient Greek word used in the story is pithos, a large storage jar commonly used for grain, oil, or wine. Hesiod’s account does not describe the object as a small wooden box. The familiar English expression arose much later through a translation tradition that changed the container’s form.
The word “box” became established after the Renaissance scholar Desiderius Erasmus used the Latin term pyxis, meaning a box or small container, in a 1508 version of the story. That influential wording shaped the expression now used in English and many other languages.
This is one of the myth’s most famous translation changes. “Pandora’s jar” is closer to Hesiod’s original account, while “Pandora’s box” is the standard modern phrase. Both refer to the same mythic object and its disastrous opening.