Hesiod names a pithos, a large Greek storage vessel, in the original Pandora story.
The Greek word pithos refers to a substantial container used for storing commodities such as grain, oil, or wine. It was not necessarily a small household box. In Works and Days, the vessel is associated with the troubles that escape into the human world after Pandora opens it.
The familiar phrase “Pandora’s box” developed through later translation and retelling. The Renaissance humanist Erasmus helped popularize the Latin expression pyxis, meaning box, in place of the ancient Greek pithos. English tradition then made “Pandora’s box” the standard expression.
The difference matters because it changes the image readers form. Ancient audiences would have imagined a large storage jar or vessel, not necessarily a hinged wooden container. The myth’s central idea remains the release of hardships, but the object’s material description has shifted across languages and centuries.