Pandora
Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics
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Do People Think That Pandora Had a Jar in the Ancient World?
Pandora is never shown with a jar or any other kind of receptacle in any ancient artwork at all she's instead shown in the act of being created. The Dutch scholar Erasmus in the 16th century who gives Pandora her jar so fully 2000 years after Hesiod was writing Erasmus mistranslates the Greek word pithos jar into the Latin word pixis box now the mistake may be one of mixing up women but it's certainly possible perhaps he just mixed up the two words though they do look quite similar.
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