Hesiod describes a pithos, a large storage jar, in the original Greek story behind Pandora’s box.
A pithos was a substantial vessel used in the ancient Mediterranean for storing materials such as grain, wine, or oil. Hesiod’s wording refers to this kind of jar rather than to a hinged box. The Greek term is commonly transliterated as pithos.
The English expression “Pandora’s box” developed through later interpretation and translation. Renaissance humanist Erasmus helped popularize the box version after translating the Greek story into Latin and rendering the vessel as a box-like container.
This detail creates one of the myth’s most common points of confusion. The traditional English phrase is firmly established, but the earliest surviving literary account describes a jar.