The original Greek Pandora myth describes a pithos, a large storage jar, rather than a small box. The familiar English expression “Pandora’s box” arose from a later translation choice.
In Hesiod’s Works and Days, Pandora receives a vessel that she is forbidden to open. The Greek noun pithos commonly referred to a substantial earthenware container used for storing commodities such as grain, oil, or wine. Such jars could be large enough to stand on the floor and were practical household or agricultural vessels.
The word “box” became established in European retellings partly through a Renaissance-era translation associated with Erasmus. That wording shaped the modern idiom, even though it does not precisely describe Hesiod’s object. The distinction matters because the jar’s scale and storage function belong to the ancient story, while the compact box belongs mainly to later cultural memory.