In the Greek Pandora myth, Pandora’s vessel is called a pithos in ancient Greek. A pithos was a large storage jar, commonly used for commodities such as grain, oil, or wine in the ancient Mediterranean world.
Hesiod’s Works and Days uses this jar rather than the small box familiar from modern storytelling. The change is linked to a Latin translation tradition: Erasmus rendered the Greek container with a Latin word meaning box, and that wording became influential in European languages. As a result, “Pandora’s box” is now much more familiar than “Pandora’s jar.”
An amphora is another ancient Greek vessel, usually with two handles and a more specific shape, but it is not the canonical container in Hesiod’s story. Kraters mixed wine and water, while lekythoi were narrow vessels often associated with oil.