The Greek word for a large storage jar used for Pandora’s container in Hesiod’s myth is pithos.
A pithos was a substantial vessel used in the ancient Greek world for storing goods such as grain, oil, or wine. Hesiod’s wording therefore describes a practical household or agricultural container, not the small hinged box familiar from modern illustrations.
The phrase “Pandora’s box” arose through later translation and retelling. The Renaissance humanist Erasmus helped popularize the Latin expression pyxis Pandorae, meaning “Pandora’s box,” even though the original Greek image was a jar. This translation history explains why the everyday idiom differs from the earliest surviving literary account.