In the Greek myth of Pandora, Zeus gave Pandora a jar to carry to humanity.
The jar is the container associated with the story’s destructive contents. In Hesiod’s Works and Days, Pandora arrives among humans with the vessel, and its opening allows the evils inside to spread. Zeus’s use of the jar forms part of the punishment connected with Prometheus’s gift of fire to humankind.
This answer can seem surprising because the familiar English expression says “Pandora’s box.” The earliest Greek account uses pithos, a large storage jar. The box image became standard through later translation and artistic tradition, so modern readers often encounter a small decorated box rather than a heavy ceramic vessel.
The jar should not be confused with unrelated Greek myths involving golden apples, torches, or crowns. Those objects belong to other stories or later artistic inventions. In the Pandora narrative, the defining object is the container that holds the evils and, in the usual interpretation, Hope.