The Greek word describing the large storage jar in Hesiod’s Pandora myth is “pithos.” A pithos was a substantial container used in ancient Greece for storing materials such as grain, oil, or wine.
Hesiod’s Works and Days does not describe a small hinged box like the one shown in modern illustrations. The Greek term pithos was translated into Latin as pyxis in later tradition, and pyxis can mean a box or small container. That translation history helped produce the familiar English expression “Pandora’s box.”
The distinction matters because the original image is a large household or storage vessel. It also helps explain why artists and writers have represented Pandora’s container in many different shapes.
The modern phrase is firmly established, even though “Pandora’s jar” would be closer to Hesiod’s wording. Both the jar and the later box refer to the same mythic container.