Hesiod used the Greek word pithos for the large container in Pandora’s myth.
A pithos was a substantial storage jar used in the ancient Greek world, commonly for goods such as grain, oil, or wine. In Works and Days, Hesiod describes Pandora opening this kind of container and releasing the troubles that had been enclosed within it.
The word became important in modern discussions because the original object was not a small box. The expression “Pandora’s box” arose through a famous Latin translation associated with Erasmus, which rendered the Greek container as pyxis, a box. English tradition retained that image, and it eventually became far more familiar than the jar described by Hesiod.
A pithos should not be confused with an amphora, another Greek vessel with a more distinctive narrow neck and two handles. The myth’s exact details also vary in later retellings, but identifying the vessel as a pithos is the standard reference point for the ancient Greek text.