Pandora opens a pithos, a large Greek storage jar, in the earliest version of the myth. Hesiod’s Greek word is *pithos*, describing a substantial ceramic container used for storing commodities such as grain, wine or oil.
The familiar phrase “Pandora’s box” arose from a translation tradition. In the sixteenth century, the humanist Erasmus rendered the Greek vessel as the Latin *pyxis*, meaning box, rather than preserving *pithos*. That choice became standard in European retellings and gave the myth its enduring English title.
A pithos was not a small hinged container. Many examples were large enough to stand on the floor and could be partly buried for cool storage. Thus, “box” is a famous wording, while “pithos” is the technically accurate vessel in Hesiod’s account.