The Greek name commonly translated as Pandora’s “box” in Hesiod’s original story is pithos. A pithos was a large storage jar, generally used for commodities such as grain, oil, or wine. The familiar English phrase “Pandora’s box” therefore does not precisely reflect the container described in the earliest surviving literary account.
The wording became established through later translation history. A Renaissance-era Latin rendering used a term meaning box or container, and that choice strongly influenced the standard expression in European languages. The myth then became widely known as Pandora’s box even though the Greek source describes a jar.
This distinction matters because the container is central to how the story changed across time. Hesiod’s pithos belongs to an archaic Greek setting of storage vessels and household goods, while “box” evokes a smaller modern object. Both terms refer to the same famous mythic container, but pithos is the more historically specific word.