In the earliest Greek versions, Pandora opened a jar.
Hesiod uses the ancient Greek word pithos, which means a large storage jar or earthenware vessel. Such jars were used in the ancient world for commodities including grain, oil, and wine. The myth therefore originally involved a practical household container rather than a small decorated box.
The familiar phrase “Pandora's box” developed later through translation history. The Renaissance scholar Erasmus rendered pithos with the Latin word pyxis, meaning box, and that wording became influential in European languages. The modern title is now firmly established, but “Pandora's jar” is closer to the earliest surviving Greek text. This is a translation issue, not a separate version of the myth.