The Greek name of the jar associated with Pandora in Hesiod’s Works and Days is pithos.
A pithos was a large ancient Greek storage jar, commonly used for products such as grain, oil, or wine. Hesiod uses the word in the Pandora story, describing a container from which destructive conditions escape after it is opened. The term is important because the earliest Greek account does not describe a small box in the modern sense.
The phrase “Pandora’s box” became widespread through later translations and cultural retellings. Erasmus, the sixteenth-century humanist, translated the Greek container with the Latin word pyxis, meaning a box or small container. That choice helped establish the expression familiar in English and many other languages.
An amphora was another type of Greek vessel, usually with two handles and a narrower body, while a krater was used for mixing wine and water. Neither is the specific container named by Hesiod in Works and Days.