In the Greek myth of Pandora, Hesiod described her opening a jar.
Hesiod used the ancient Greek word pithos, which means a large storage jar or earthenware vessel. These jars were commonly used in the ancient Mediterranean for storing grain, wine, oil, and other goods. The container was therefore not originally a small hinged box like the one shown in many modern illustrations.
The familiar phrase “Pandora’s box” arose later. In a Latin translation published by the Renaissance writer Erasmus, pithos was rendered as pyxis, a word associated with a box or casket. That translation helped establish the expression used in English and many other languages.
The myth appears most fully in Hesiod’s Works and Days. Modern retellings often preserve the story’s moral while changing the container’s shape, so “jar” is the historically precise answer for Hesiod’s version.