The Greek word for Pandora’s container in Hesiod’s myth was pithos.
A pithos was a large storage jar used in ancient Greece and elsewhere in the Mediterranean. Such vessels commonly held grain, oil, or wine. Hesiod’s Greek text uses the word pithos when describing the container Pandora opened; it does not specifically call the object a box.
The familiar expression “Pandora’s box” developed through later translation history. In the sixteenth century, the humanist Erasmus rendered the Greek vessel with the Latin word pyxis, meaning a box or small container. That choice helped establish the wording that became standard in European languages.
This translation detail changes the image but not the myth’s central event. Pandora releases evils or troubles from the container, while something beneficial remains inside. Modern retellings often depict a small ornate box because that is the established cultural image, even though a large storage jar better reflects Hesiod’s original wording.