The ancient Greek name for the large storage jar in Pandora’s original story is pithos.
A pithos was a large Greek storage container used for commodities such as grain, wine, and oil. In Hesiod’s Works and Days, Pandora opens this kind of vessel, releasing the troubles that had been confined inside. The word is important because the earliest surviving account does not describe a small hinged box.
The English phrase “Pandora’s box” became established through later interpretation and translation. Erasmus helped popularize the box wording in the sixteenth century, and it eventually became the standard expression in European languages. Modern retellings therefore often show a decorative box even though the ancient Greek image was a substantial storage jar.
A pithos was not simply a symbolic object invented for the myth. Large jars were practical household and agricultural containers in the ancient Mediterranean. The contrast between that ordinary vessel and its extraordinary contents helps explain why later artists transformed it into a more compact, visually dramatic box.