The original container in Hesiod’s Pandora story was a pithos, a large storage jar.
Hesiod’s Greek text uses the word pithos, a term for a substantial vessel used to store commodities such as grain, oil, or wine. It was not the small hinged box suggested by the familiar English expression “Pandora’s box.” The jar’s size and storage function fit the material culture of the ancient Greek world.
The box image became dominant through later transmission and translation. A Renaissance Latin rendering used pyxis, a word associated with a box or casket, helping establish the wording that eventually became standard in European languages. “Pandora’s box” is therefore a famous example of a traditional phrase preserving a later interpretation rather than the exact object in the earliest surviving account.