Hesiod describes Pandora opening a jar in the earliest surviving version of her myth. The Greek word is pithos, a large storage vessel commonly used for commodities such as grain, oil, or wine. Hesiod’s Works and Days is the key ancient source for the episode, while the later English phrase “Pandora’s box” changed the object in popular culture.
The translation matters because a pithos was not necessarily a small household jar. Some ancient pithoi were enormous, standing taller than a person and sunk partly into the ground for storage. In the myth, however, the vessel functions symbolically: it contains troubles that spread among humans when Pandora opens it.
Renaissance translators and later retellings helped establish “box” as the familiar form. The change may have been influenced by translation choices and the visual convenience of depicting a box. Ancient Greek art and literature therefore do not require the container to look like the hinged box seen in modern illustrations.