In the original Greek myth recorded by Hesiod, Pandora opened a jar.
Works and Days uses the Greek word pithos, which refers to a large storage jar used in the ancient Mediterranean world. The vessel held destructive forces or troubles that escaped when Pandora opened it. Hesiod’s account does not call it a box. The familiar phrase “Pandora’s box” arose later through a translation tradition.
The box wording is commonly linked to the sixteenth-century humanist Erasmus, who rendered the Greek vessel as a Latin term meaning box or container. That influential choice became standard in European languages and eventually shaped the story’s modern title.
Ancient storage jars could be large, heavy containers for grain, wine, or oil, so imagining a small hinged box changes the visual character of the myth. The distinction matters because “jar” is the most faithful answer to what Hesiod actually described, while “Pandora’s box” remains the established English expression for the legend and its wider metaphor.