Pithos is the Greek word for the large storage jar that Hesiod says Pandora opened.
A pithos was a substantial ceramic container used in ancient Greece and the wider Aegean world for storing commodities such as grain, oil, or wine. Hesiod’s Works and Days uses this kind of vessel in the Pandora story. The jar’s practical, large-scale storage function differs from the small decorative box shown in many modern illustrations.
The phrase “Pandora’s box” became standard through later translation and retelling. Erasmus’s Latin expression, usually rendered as a box, helped establish the familiar wording even though the earlier Greek text described a pithos. Amphora, krater, and kylix are also Greek vessel terms, but they refer to different forms and uses. Identifying the vessel as a pithos is therefore a question of ancient terminology, not merely a preference for one translation.