The ancient Greek name for the large jar in Hesiod’s Pandora myth is pithos. A pithos was a sizable ceramic storage vessel used in the ancient Greek world for commodities such as grain, oil, and wine.
Hesiod’s use of pithos is the reason scholars distinguish the original “Pandora’s jar” from the later “Pandora’s box.” The box wording became influential after the Renaissance humanist Erasmus translated the Greek term into Latin as pyxis, a word associated with a box or container.
A pithos could be large enough for household or communal storage, so it does not resemble the small decorative box often shown in modern illustrations. The translation shift changed the object’s visual identity while preserving the story’s basic plot.
The terms krater, amphora, and lekythos refer to other ancient Greek vessel types. They are plausible alternatives, but none is the specific word used for Pandora’s container in Hesiod’s account.