In the original Greek version of Pandora’s Box, the container was a jar rather than a box.
Hesiod uses the Greek word pithos, which refers to a large storage jar. Such vessels were used in the ancient Mediterranean to store products including grain, wine, and olive oil. The pithos in the myth therefore fits familiar household and agricultural imagery from Hesiod’s world.
The “box” wording became established later through translation history. The humanist scholar Erasmus used the Latin phrase pyxis, meaning a small box or casket, in a sixteenth-century retelling. That choice helped shape the version known throughout much of the modern world.
The change from jar to box does not alter the central plot: Pandora opens a sealed container, hardships escape, and hope remains inside. It does, however, explain why illustrations and popular stories often show a small decorated box even though the earliest surviving literary account presents a large jar.