The Greek word pithos describes the large storage jar in Pandora’s myth.
In Works and Days, Hesiod uses pithos for the container Pandora opens. A pithos was a substantial ceramic storage vessel used in the ancient Greek world for commodities such as grain, oil, or wine. It could be large enough to stand on the floor and was not the small hinged box suggested by modern illustrations.
The familiar expression “Pandora’s box” developed through later translation history. The Renaissance scholar Erasmus used the Latin term pyxis, meaning a box or casket, when rendering the story. That wording became influential in European languages and fixed the image now common in popular culture.
The distinction matters because the shape changes the visual meaning of the myth. A storage jar evokes household supplies and burial or architectural contexts, while a small box suggests a portable secret object. Both images refer to the same legendary episode.