What kind of vessel does Hesiod describe in the original Pandora story?

Hesiod describes a storage jar in the original Pandora story.

The ancient Greek word pithos refers to a large container, commonly a storage jar used for commodities such as grain, oil, or wine. In Works and Days, Pandora opens this kind of vessel and releases the evils held within it. The object is therefore not originally a small hinged box in the modern sense.

The phrase “Pandora’s box” became dominant through a later translation tradition. The Renaissance scholar Erasmus is widely associated with rendering the Greek vessel as a box in Latin, helping establish the expression that English readers know today. Modern retellings and illustrations usually follow that familiar wording. This change does not erase the older jar image, but it explains why the title phrase differs from Hesiod’s object. The jar-versus-box distinction is one of the clearest examples of how translation shaped the popular form of a classical myth.