In the Greek myth of Pandora, the container is described by the Greek word pithos.
A pithos was a large storage jar used in the ancient Greek world for commodities such as grain, wine, or oil. Hesiod’s Works and Days uses this kind of container in the Pandora story, rather than the small hinged box familiar from modern illustrations.
The “box” wording became dominant through later translation and retelling. The Renaissance humanist Desiderius Erasmus helped popularize the Latin phrase meaning “Pandora’s box,” even though the original Greek object was a jar. This translation history explains why the common English title differs from the ancient description.
The pithos detail matters because the myth’s imagery concerns a substantial household storage vessel. Ancient Greek audiences would have recognized it as a practical container, while later European readers increasingly pictured a compact box. Both versions refer to the same story, but pithos is the historically precise term.