Pithos is the Greek name for Pandora’s large storage jar in Hesiod’s story.
A pithos was a substantial ceramic container used in ancient Greece and the wider Mediterranean. Such jars could hold agricultural products and were often large enough to stand on the floor. Hesiod’s use of this word makes the original scene more like opening a household storage vessel than lifting the lid of a small jewelry box.
The Latin translation pyxis helped create the later “Pandora’s box” tradition. A pyxis was a smaller box-like container, so the translation changed both the object and the mental image associated with the myth. English inherited the newer image through Renaissance and later retellings.
Pithos and amphora are also easy to confuse. An amphora is typically a transport or storage jar with two handles and a narrower profile, while pithos refers to a large storage jar. The specific term in the Pandora story is pithos.