In the earliest Greek version of Pandora’s myth, the escaping evils were held in a jar.
Hesiod’s Works and Days, written in ancient Greece, uses the Greek word pithos for the container. A pithos was a large storage jar, commonly used for commodities such as grain, oil, or wine. Pandora opens this vessel, releasing troubles into the world, while one remaining thing stays inside.
The familiar phrase “Pandora’s box” developed through later European translation and literary tradition. The Renaissance scholar Erasmus helped popularize the wording by translating or adapting the Greek container as a box. That translation became so influential that “Pandora’s box” is now the standard English expression.
The distinction matters because modern illustrations usually show a small decorated box, whereas the ancient story’s container was a substantial storage jar. Both versions refer to the same myth, but “jar” is the historically earlier description.