She was the ancient hipster who died tragically young after spending her days indulging in some very bad habits.

Now the mummified body of a heavily tattooed, cannabis puffing princess has gone on display some 2,500 years after she died of breast cancer.

The marijuana-loving royal has been dubbed Princess Ukok, which is the name of the frozen plateau where her body was found.

She is thought to have ruled a kingdom in the Altai Mountains, a remote area where the borders of modern day Russia, China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan now meet.

Her body is on display at the Anokhin National Museum in Gorno-Altaisk, prompting locals to claim that the exhibition could unleash an ancient curse and bring disaster to the region.

Akai Kine, chief of a local ethnic group called the Teles, launched an unsuccessful court battle to stop the exhibition and place her body in its lonely grave.

"The dead cannot be disturbed, and especially they cannot be held on public display and carried around the world," he told The Siberian Times.

"After she was dug out, we immediately saw earthquakes, floods, and hail which were not known previously."

Kine referred to the princess as "The White Lady" and said she was a high priestess responsible for protecting "the umbilical cord of the Earth".

"She stood as a guard at the gates of the underworld, preventing the penetration of evil from the lower worlds," he added.

'However, after archaeologists removed the mummy, it has lost its strength and can no longer perform its protective function.

"So evil started to penetrate, natural disasters and human conflicts began."

Princess Ukok is thought to have fought cancer for five years after contracting the illness at the age of 20, using cannabis to cope with the pain.

Her taste for the herb may have convinced Princess Ukok's subjects that her stoned ramblings were actually messages from the spirit world.

"She was often in altered state of mind," said Professor Natalia Polosmak, who first dug up the body of the pothead princess' body in 1993.

"We can suggest that through her could speak the ancestral spirits and gods. Her ecstatic visions in all likelihood allowed her to be considered as some chosen being, necessary and crucial for the benefit of society.

"She can be seen as the darling of spirits and cherished until her last breath."

The Princess' tastes did not stop at herbal cannabis, the professor continued.

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She is said to have enjoyed "wine, hashish, opium, henbane, an extract of mandrake, aconite and Indian hemp", enduring all the "ensuing consequences" of her habits.

In fact, one of the only vices she appears to have spurned was sex, as she remained celibate throughout her life.

Her heavily tattooed body was buried along with six horses, coriander seeds and a small pouch of cannabis, indicating her royal status.

The Princess had a unique sense of style, sporting a shaved head and inked images of animals.

She will go on display wrapped in a fur shawl to preserve her modesty, although her tattoos will still be visible.

Dr Yuri Abramov, a researcher with the All-Russian Research Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plant, promised her body would be treated with respect.

"We made sure of the absolute safety of the mummy," he said.

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