The Greek name for Pandora’s large storage jar in Hesiod’s original story is pithos.
A pithos was a substantial ancient Greek storage vessel, commonly used for commodities such as grain, wine, or oil. It was much larger and more practical than the small box suggested by the modern English expression. Hesiod uses this vessel in Works and Days when describing the release of troubles into the human world.
The word matters because the title “Pandora’s box” is a translation history rather than the wording of the earliest surviving account. Erasmus’s Latin rendering used pyxis, meaning a box or small container, and that choice strongly influenced later European retellings.
An amphora is another Greek vessel, but it typically has two handles and a narrower form. A krater was used for mixing wine and water, while a kylix was a drinking cup. None is the container named in Hesiod’s passage.